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Articles by Don Watson
North by north-east
Growing up in drizzly South Gippsland, I was drawn to the sunnier side of the Great Dividing Range – the north-east of Victoria. For several years, my parents searched for cheap dairy heifers in the province and sometimes I went with them. Even in winter, the sun always seemed to shine up there, and more brightly than ever it shone on our hills. Both the place and the people seemed more expansive, more open to the light. That soft sunlight warmed the north-east air early in September this year.
The Monthly February issue cover essay
The Monthly has chosen to temporarily remove Louise Milligan’s recent essay from our website. We have been made aware of an active case that is about to come before the courts that had not been previously in the public domain. In the interests of protecting the integrity of that case, we have taken down the story. When the case concludes, the essay will be made available to readers once again.
The true legacy of the rapist George Pell
The day politicians, priests and pundits filed into St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney for the pontifical requiem mass venerating Cardinal George Pell as a Catholic hero, a soldier for truth, a prospective saint and an unfortunate scapegoat in a vast woke conspiracy, a mathematics teacher was at home, seething. In David’s inbox was a letter from the National Redress Scheme that threw into serious doubt the platitudes of the faithful. It was dated December 7, 2022 – five weeks before Pell’s death.
Kindred spirits
Is a biennial indigenous festival in Taiwan an attempt to atone for the grim truth of a people’s extinction? The November moon was behind the clouds, a brushstroke of white in the dark, when the first song began. There were flaming torches. An arrow was shot into the east. Four fires burned in the corners of the arena. Then a long line of people, arms interlinked, paced into the ritual grounds, their voices rising in a wave. Around their hips were rattle belts, or tapa:ngasan in the SaySiyat language.
Mourning in America
The state funeral for former US president Jimmy Carter, Washington, DC, January 9, 2025. © Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Donald Trump’s return to the White House is a persuasive reminder that the US has always been a less than perfect democracy If anyone tries to tell you what is going on in the United States, walk away. Do not be like the novice at the racetrack, prey to every passing tout. The more we listen to them, the more clueless and miserable we become.
February 2025
‘Up in Annie’s room behind the clock’ An initially confusing remark from the author’s grandmother became a wry touchstone even as her dementia took hold
Giving a rat’s
Treating all rats and mice like invasive pests has led to extinctions of native rodents important to our ecosystems It’s a midwinter morning in Melbourne when I bump into my neighbour. “If you had 15 minutes with a native rodent expert, what would you say?” I ask. I’m running late to the 70th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian Mammal Society, a four-day conference that gathers more than 140 of the nation’s best and brightest ecologists, scientists and conservationists.
‘Territory’
Current Issue Newsletters Podcasts Login Subscribe November 2024 Noted Netflix’s Top End cattle station drama, from the director of ‘Wolf Creek’, is an enjoyably histrionic soap opera If you live in urban Australia and have never had to wrestle a crocodile or fend off a disgruntled kangaroo, you might be surprised by the extent to which the rest of the world defines this country in relation to its dangerous animals.
The people who mistook their lives for an app
What we have lost since the internet’s libertarian pioneers failed to foresee the dangers of life on the unregulated digital frontier “The future is digital.” I heard this repeatedly when I was researching schools’ relationships with tech companies a few years ago for what would turn out to be an investigation in these pages of a pervasive – if not predatory – influence on curriculum.
Sally Rooney’s ‘Intermezzo’
The Irish author’s tendency to blend literary and popular fiction is again evident in her latest novel, another tidy love story Reading Sally Rooney’s books is a chance to think about the difference between literary and popular fiction, and why literary fiction is not better, exactly, but rarer, harder to appreciate, absolutely necessary. Popular fiction, no matter how “dark” or “complicated” it can be, often provides too much reassurance.
Before and after ambience: ‘The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir’ and ‘Endlessness’
Sarah Davachi is a storied composer and musician from Canada exploring classical and chamber music, and the art of the ambient synthesiser drone, in extraordinary ways and in amazing spaces. Pipe organs in churches are her thing: she abstracts, retunes and reinvents them in her recordings and residencies. There is a certain gravity she brings to her recorded music – 12 albums or doubles since 2015.
November 2024
Current Issue Newsletters Podcasts Login Subscribe Essays The Nation Reviewed Vox Arts & Letters Noted Life sentences Essays The Nation Reviewed Vox Arts & Letters Noted Cartoon Essays International politics My fellow Americans A speech for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the event of an election outcome Federal politics In like Glyn What do the passions and professional triumphs of Glyn Davis, the intellectual running the prime minister’s office, tell us about this...
Tomb reader
A lifelong love for the solitude of cemeteries has the author regarding them as places full of life At home and abroad, I am a stroller of cemeteries. This is not a morbid interest, nor is it bravado in the realm of the grim reaper. As I wander a cemetery, I hardly dwell on death at all. The one I know best is the Melbourne General Cemetery. Opened in 1853, and located just a couple of kilometres from what is now the CBD, it was Australia’s first parkland cemetery.
Queering the pitch
Should Sydney’s Qtopia centre, which memorialises prejudice and violence against queer and trans people, accept philanthropy from the Murdochs?
In like Glyn
What do the passions and professional triumphs of Glyn Davis, the intellectual running the prime minister’s office, tell us about this government’s approach to the tasks at hand? In car-dependent Canberra, Glyn Davis chooses to walk as much as possible, often through the front doors of buildings such as the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, which he leads, and Parliament House, whose political class he serves.
The people who mistook their lives for an app
What we have lost since the internet’s libertarian pioneers failed to foresee the dangers of life on the unregulated digital frontier “The future is digital.” I heard this repeatedly when I was researching schools’ relationships with tech companies a few years ago for what would turn out to be an investigation in these pages of a pervasive – if not predatory – influence on curriculum.
My fellow Americans
A speech for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the event of an election outcome Thank you. Thank you. Thank… et cetera. Thank you to all those good people who had hope and worked their Democratic butts off in this campaign. Democratic and, in some instances, Republican butts off. Thank you. We don’t deserve you. Really. For God’s sake, we had the White House for 12 of the past 16 years! For 20 of the past 32! How are we not responsible for this shemozzle?
Bro wave: Podcast personalities and masculinity
Hugely popular “podcast bros”, such as Joe Rogan, are defining masculinity and working hard against an end to patriarchy In the 1970s, an Australian sociologist began thinking about masculinities and the impact they had on men and boys. Speaking in 2021, Raewyn Connell said she was influenced by the feminist and students’ movements in the 1960s, to think about power from the centre rather than the margins.
‘… the refuge of art … that is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita’
A Bellini Madonna and some lines from Nabokov symbolise the broadcaster’s dedication to the transcendence and beauty of art “I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And that is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.” —Vladimir Nabokov The Madonna – diffident, suspicious – side-eyes her inexplicable infant as she sits holding him before a panel of pea-green baize.
Into the dark: The legacy of Alice Munro
November 2024 Arts & Letters The shocking revelations about the late eminent Canadian author’s betrayal of her daughter might provide insight into her ability to write raw inner lives Having read and re-read Alice Munro’s stories for almost 30 years, I’ve often laughed at the laurel most frequently bestowed on her: the near obligatory claim that the late Canadian short-story writer was “our Chekhov”.
If you want to fix America, fix Detroit • Don Watson
“If you want to know about America, study Detroit,” they say. That’s true enough. The glowing CBD, the pleasant suburbs, the fine old institutions and the new industries fired by new technology — America the good. The crime, corruption, poverty and addiction, the race and class divide, the derelict suburbs — America the bad. A fallen city. Yet the furious belief that the city will revive, will be born again, that God will be in the whirlwind — America the eternally hopeful.
High Noon: Trump, Harris and America on the Brink
East of the Rocky Mountains in the American spring, moist warm air from the Gulf of Mexico and the southwest collides with cold upper-level air from the Rocky Mountains and Canada. In the chaos of contending winds and temperatures, supercell thunderstorms develop, and from the belly of their sullen black clouds a slender funnel shimmies forth. As if obeying instinct, it reaches for the ground. More tornadoes are born in Tornado Alley than anywhere else on Earth.
The TV man
Filmmaking is the most precarious art. Of course, most film – and television – makes no claim to be art, and the shows that do are just as likely to be shot down for reasons that would never be applied to other art forms. Polanski might come up with something as compelling and memorable as Chinatown, only to be told that, being of a certain genre, his work lacks “the richer humanity required by art”. Fair enough, too.
Tax Season Dos and Don’ts for Dental Practices
Share In this episode of “The Art of Dental Finance and Management,” Art speaks with colleagues Scott Haberman and Don Watson, both partners at Eide Bailly. The three address some of the most frequently asked questions they receive every tax season and discuss potential tax law changes that may impact dental practices.
High Noon by Don Watson
Don Watson offers a report from the United States that catches the madness and theatre of an election like no other. This is a historically informed, mordant account of Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and a country approaching democratic high noon. From Los Angeles to New York, from Detroit to Kalamazoo, Watson observes America in all its diversity and conflict, reality and unreality.
‘They don’t know shit. You’re not gonna get hurt. You’re fuckin’ Beretta. They believe every fuckin’ word, ’cause you’re super cool’
It’s awfully embarrassing to confess, but that right there is my bathroom-mirror mantra. I say these rather preposterous words to myself in bathroom mirrors when I’m nervous or about to do some public event that terrifies me and all my social anxieties – generously passed down to me through my nervy dad’s blood – freeze my insides and make me piss more times than is healthy.
Christos Tsiolkas’s ‘The In-Between’
The latest from the acclaimed Australian author throws scorn at those who claim virtue and the complete control of their desires Christos Tsiolkas is still so good at arranging the elements of a literary story: its necessary detail, its necessary drama.
M. John Harrison’s ‘Wish I Was Here’
M. John Harrison’s latest book, the “anti-memoir” Wish I Was Here (Serpent’s Tail), is marketed under the slogan “the best writer you’ve never heard of ”: an encomium to make the most robust of writers a little wistful. The confidence of that “you” is off-putting, since Harrison in fact has many admirers, among them authors such as Helen Macdonald, Angela Carter and Robert Macfarlane.
The candles flicker and dim: ‘Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party’
Ian White’s documentary captures the incendiary trajectory of the seminal Melbourne band at the expense of the inertia that fuelled it “Rock music is the anus of culture,” Tracy Pew once said – an apt claim for the bassist of The Birthday Party, who for three years dedicated themselves to full-bodied, creative expulsion. Filth was an incessant theme for the Melbourne-born band, their lyrics conjuring lice, rats and swamplands as a young Nick Cave’s howl evolved into offbeat, throbbing chants.
Into the streaming void: ‘The Killer’ and ‘They Cloned Tyrone’
Talking with a friend the other day, he noted an interesting fact: that few things are as discouraging to a film’s audience as its premiere on a streaming platform. “Take that Pablo Larráin film [El Conde, reviewed last issue]. I was dying to see that – right up until the moment it appeared on my watchlist. And then, for some reason, I could hardly care less.” Would he watch it, though?
A house provided: Preserving public housing
The architectural practice proving that refurbishing public housing can be less expensive and disruptive than demolition for new projects Writing in 1977, the architectural historian Charles Jencks ecstatically pronounced modern architecture dead and issued an exact cause, date and time: Modern Architecture died in St Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3.32pm (or thereabouts) when the infamous Pruitt-Igoe scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de grâce by...
There are no words
Finding solace and surprise around a family Scrabble board with a grandmother in decline GEEKS, my cousin spells out. “What are you implying?” I ask. He grins. “Take a look around this room.” My aunt laughs uproariously. “I was manic on Saturday. Ask your sister!” HYPER, spells my brother, on a Triple Word Score. At the beginning of this game, when he allowed me to be his partner, he suggested 30 points per move as an appropriate minimum. Once again he meets his quota.
Wood for the trees
Native timber harvesting is ending, but as we begin to understand that ‘untouched wilderness’ is a myth, how best should forests be managed in future? Drive it like you stole it. Thrash it, pedal to the metal. Log it, lop it, clear it. Pulp it, burn it, plant it. Run it dry. Among the first acts of the Australian colonial project was an attack on trees.
Peace in the home
The trial of former school principal Malka Leifer for sexual abuse highlighted how shame and trauma are treated in the justice system, and why some institutions and communities are resistant to scrutiny It takes 19 minutes to walk from the ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel Synagogue, in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea, to the Adass Israel School, in neighbouring Elsternwick. It’s also a 19-minute walk from the synagogue to the kosher butcher in St Kilda.
This little theory went to market
Using the scientific method to debunk the persistent claim that Covid-19 originated in Wuhan as a lab leak Reporting on the origins of the Covid pandemic has been a challenge for journalists. From the beginning there have been two narratives. One was that the virus, SARS-CoV-2 (SARS-2), jumped from an infected animal into humans at the Huanan Seafood Market, in the city of Wuhan, China.
The year the Voice broke
How John Howard’s shadow over Australian politics is evident in the referendum, reconciliation and the rest The Indigenous leaders who made the case for the Voice to Parliament, and the non-Indigenous who joined them, have suffered a bitter rebuke. To appreciate the real blow, you don’t have to believe in the proposal. You could vote against it and still wonder how an Aboriginal parent should explain the result to her nine- or 12- or 15-year-old. What should she say?
Strong suit
A visit to a master tailor in Albury was like a step back in time, and decades later the resulting suit is still good for all occasions My first suit was for my brother’s wedding. It was the 1970s. I was in my early 20s and surviving on a meagre student allowance, so the suit was bought with strict economy and maximum fashion firmly in mind. Unfortunately, it was the height of flared trousers, wide lapels, and green and yellow pastel stripes.
The seat of our plants
An environmental lawyer turned activist is installing street furniture in inner-suburban Sydney that discreetly turns food waste into compost Michael Mobbs has a big dream: “I want to end cafe and residential food waste in Chippendale by 2024.” An environmental lawyer turned water activist and street gardener, Mobbs is bringing change to the streets of the inner-Sydney suburb that has been his home since 1978.
Fighting fire with fire
Early dry-season burning by Indigenous rangers in the Northern Territory is reducing the risk and severity of wildfires Via a video call, Dr Rohan Fisher presents me with a digital mosaic. He is zooming in on the North Australia & Rangelands Fire Information (NAFI) map of Arnhem Land as he screenshares, telling me it is easier to show rather than tell.
True colours
What the outcome of the Voice referendum suggests about the future of reconciliation, and what it says about the national character In the dark recent recess in civility and joint hope that was the 45 days of what could notionally be called a national debate on constitutional reform and a Voice to Parliament, character was often cited by those opposed, on the airwaves or in Facebook posts, as a remedy, an antidote to the divisive proposal that pedestalled one part of the population over the...
A modest proposal for submarine money
From now until referendum day, we have removed the paywall on all Voice coverage. Read and share this article for free. AUKUS is the gold standard of a major reform being implemented without sufficient detail – or a referendum Let us for a moment walk in the shoes of those good citizens who think they might vote “No” in the Voice referendum. Not Bolt’s or Dutton’s – none of the Murdoch–LNP axis – but the footwear of humble, silent folk.
Heroes and villains
Cancelling Douglas Bader, legendary fighter pilot, World War Two hero and unreconstructed racist If, as someone said, “No man is a hero to his valet”, it is also true that every man is a valet to his hero. Well, as we make them, we can break them. So, I have cancelled Sir Douglas Bader. Others may choose to follow my example, but for now it is a personal cancellation, not a global one. For readers not familiar with the name, Douglas Bader was a fighter pilot, a World War Two air ace.
Sydney Writers' Festival - Beginnings
I want to tell you about a different kind of world... Pregnant with the thrill of storytelling, full of surprises, calm, jarring, momentous or direct, the first lines of a writer’s work take us to exactly where they want us to be. Whether this is at the beginning, the middle or the end of a story, a life, or an argument we are in their hands, and now have to trust them to take us on the journey.
AIchaintify (ACTY) Launched, Revolutionizing Blockchain with AI and Machine Learning Integration
Palo Alto, CA, May 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a groundbreaking development, a team of leading blockchain developers and AI researchers have announced the launch of AIchaintify, a cryptocurrency that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a more efficient, secure, and user-friendly blockchain ecosystem.
Bruce Petty’s joke in the machine
In memory of the political cartoonist who stood against capitalism, exploitation, groupthink and bullshit In Gulliver’s Travels, a gentleman from the “grand academy of Lagado” is employed unavailingly to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. Bruce Petty (1929 – 2023) had more success, as Swift himself did, by extracting from the cruelties and madness of human society, the sunbeams of irony, metaphor and laughter.
More than a feeling
The “hard decisions” of our political leaders too rarely emerge from a belief in our shared humanity In 1917, the American writer Susan Glaspell published her take on the detective story, a genre that, since Edgar Allan Poe, had belonged all but exclusively to men. She based her story on a murder case she had covered as a reporter. It went like this: On a cold day in rural Iowa, a man has been found in his bedroom strangled with a rope. The victim’s wife has been taken to jail for questioning.
March 2023 | The Monthly
Three dollars, 25 years and three conversations The author on the inspiration behind his novel ‘Three Dollars’, and the reception of its neoliberalism critiques by prominent figures Rian Johnson’s throwback to easygoing episodic crime drama is a joyously unbingeable vehicle for Natasha Lyonne The Booker winner’s new novel is a satirical romp taking on human frailty, and both action and inaction in the face of ecological collapse How a novel’s opening line reflected the author’s dissonance as...
Ambivalent in Arnhem Land
What keeps me connected to Arnhem Land are friendships that are indistinguishable from family ties, as well as an ongoing interest in the way conditions there are being “developed” by the peculiar, problematic governmental processes that also intrigue the author of this rather baffling book. Arnhem Land is indeed Another Country, as David Gulpilil says in the film of that name.
Don Watson reviews 'The Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 7 1891–1939, A–Ch' edited by Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle
In his uncommonly long life, Mahomet Allum, a native of Afghanistan, combined the vocations of camel driving, herbalism and philanthropy – not in Kabul, but in Adelaide. Allum believed himself ‘God’s messenger’, but a Crown Prosecutor described him as a particularly deceitful and cunning ‘quack’ and brought about his conviction under the Medical Practitioners Act.
The makeover: Peter Dutton’s hard sell to the electorate
Can the Opposition leader change his hard-man image while also making a virtue of his consistency? In the chaotic last days of August 2018, when Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership was evaporating and Scott Morrison was all that stood between Australia and Peter Dutton’s ambition, a close friend of Dutton’s offered the nearest I would get to inside dope. “Morrison might seem to be an okay moderate, but actually he’s a prick,” said the friend, who worked closely with both contenders.
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