BTW Catallaxy’s take on Davis is here. One of our regular commenters works in the film industry and he really let rip – good stuff, too.

As Siegfried used to say to 99, “Don’t push it, Cookie”

No way! That sounds awesome!!!!

When’s it coming out did you say?

I bet he does too, especially if in the interim yet another new magazine is launched a la The Monthly that proudly proclaims itself as ‘a new voice’ in Australian commentary and opinion but, with a sickening inevitability, leads with a first issue featuring, oh, I don’t know, Helen Garner in conversation with Peter Craven about Shane Moloney’s new novel introduced by Morag Fraser with Robert Manne on Don Watson’s latest analysis of Rai Gaita’s book on Peter Porter…ad nauseum.

And also, what is he doing himself to redress the imbalance he claims and deplores? Preparing his earlier argument for repurposing and republishing as ‘new’ content, that’s all! But making a noise doesn’t make you a cultural gatekeeper, it just makes you…noisy. As a professor of writing and editing, he could at least set up a magazine or website himself to promote new writing. Failing that he could have drawn some attention to the excellent work in that area at HEAT magazine – he does give Arena and Overland a nod, but that’s about it.

A piece of rather tired polemic with little detail or substance; I wonder what he will come up with on May 26 at EWF.

Reminds me of those Stasi (sic?) agents who even today mutter together in coffee shops about the capitalist conspiracy that stopped their oh-so-close-to-perfect system reaching utopia