Top 10 Australia Culture On this week 20/09/2020 (COVID-19 EDITION)

Don’t wear fear or nobody will know you’re there. Don’t wear Crocs or everybody will pretend you’re not there.

 

10) An Evening with Jodi Picoult 

23rd September

What: Experience ‘An Evening with Jodi Picoult’ to celebrate the launch of The Book of Two Ways. In conversation with Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half, Jodi will discuss her inspiration for the novel, her experience researching ancient Egypt and archaeology, what it’s been like adjusting her writing routine in our strange new world, and so much more.

Why: Remember what a s**t author used to be before the age of the hackneyed White House deserter.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=19a3a980-f91f-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

9) Stay the Folk Home! 

24th September

What: Experience some brilliant live performances streamed from favourite Jalopy Theatre (Brooklyn, NY) regulars in the genres of folk, trad-jazz, blues & roots.

Why: See? The USA isn’t always a complete horror show. Sometimes it’s just mildly annoying.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=75063700-f921-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

8) Free Shakespeare at Home: King Lear

27th September

What: Did you know Shakespeare composed King Lear during the London plague of 1606? This production is a unique response to the current pandemic that may keep us from gathering in parks, but not from sharing art in the virtual realm. What happens when the nation’s ageing leader divides the land among their children and renounces political responsibility without also renouncing personal power? Find out in King Lear.

Why: Teach your child the benefits of being a manipulative a***hole. Tragedy and death aside, the good and honest Cordelia was the only one who didn’t make bank.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=b9d2ae90-ee09-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

7) Bloody Scotland

20th September

What: Kick your day off in sinister style with a rolling conversation featuring the good and great of Scottish crime fiction. Like the best crime novels, there is a cast of devious characters who will deliver twists and turns, shocks and surprises. The biggest surprise however will be if it all goes without a hitch. The (very) rough idea is that four or five authors will be chatting on your screen then one will drop off, a new one will appear, and the conversation will go where it goes. What happens in the end is anyone’s guess.

Why: Who better to deconstruct, process and spice the innards of a grim crime than the Scots?

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=b37ddf00-f91d-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

6) Black Culture Matters: Black Hair-itage, History, and Healing

26th September

What: Black Culture Matters is a series hosted by the African American Studies Institute (AASI) at Prince George’s Community College, revolving around this year’s theme: Resisting De-humanization through the Humanities. The goal of this series is not to declare the value of Black lives to those who do not wish to acknowledge it. The goal is, instead, to examine the ways in which people of African descent have expressed their own humanity, to affirm the meaning-making with which they have resisted being “thingified.”

Why: In other words; fetishise feet, statues, sock puppets, gags, whips, enemas, consensual pain, pregnancy, ghosts, tentacles, piss or electricity, not race.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=3d896110-f91e-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

5) Keep Your Distance: A Socially Distanced Comedy Show 

26th September

What: KevOnStage and Transit Pictures brings you the next instalment of the Keep Your Distance comedy series!  This volume will feature KevOnStage, Tony Baker, Sydney Castillo, Keysha E, Bobby J, Ron G, and Rob Haze. Join the virtual audience as comedian KevOnStage hosts his hilarious friends in their return to the stage in this socially distanced stand-up comedy event.

Why: If you’re still able to engage in the act of unforced laughter without chemical enhancement, go ahead. We can only express our admiration.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=d081e410-f91e-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

4) On Hood Feminism: A Live Online Conversation with Mikki Kendall 

24th September

What: Author and public speaker Mikki Kendall believes that today’s feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia about issues like race, class, sexual orientation, and their ability to intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Mikki asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? Join CIIS Expressive Arts Therapy Professor and Program Chair Danielle Drake for a conversation with Mikki about feminism and learn to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.

Why: Experience a complex dissection of race and feminism that refuses to provide a simple answer; or just choke down a season of Girls, buy one of those shirts with a pink fist on it and bring up menstruation apropos of nothing during every single conversation. It’s roughly the same thing.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=699dcb40-f920-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

3) Dope Jazz

21st September

What: Jazz is dope and Dapper Street is at it again! Streaming live from The Cube it’s the Dope Jazz Series featuring Charlotte’s finest musicians paying tribute to jazz greats. Sponsored by ASC’s Culture Blocks in partnership with Jazz & Soul Music. This incarnation will see D’wayne Jordan pay tribute to the greatest jazz drummers of all time.

Why: Apparently the word ‘dope’ is still relevant…in much the same way as experimental jazz.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=01d00b30-f921-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

2) Andrea Hirata: Award-Winning Author 

22nd September

What: A virtual fireside chat with the award-winning novelist as he uncovers how he gathers inspiration for his work. Andrea Hirata is best known for his tetralogy The Rainbow Troops, which shed light to the education inequality in Indonesia. The winner of the New York Book Festival is now back with his latest fiction novel, Guru Aini, which follows a teacher’s passion for maths and her genius student.

Why: Remember that good authors still exist, then remember that thing on Netflix that seemed vaguely tolerable and watch that instead.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=01d09ce0-f920-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536

 

1) Life Is What Happens: The Making of John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy

23rd September

What: In this interactive, multimedia talk, Kenneth Womack traces the story behind John Lennon’s remarkable 1980 comeback album with wife Yoko Ono. Womack will explore the powerful, life-affirming story of the former Beatle’s renaissance after five years of self-imposed retirement. Lennon’s final pivotal year would climax in several moments of creative triumph as he rediscovered his artistic self in dramatic fashion. Womack’s presentation is drawn from his forthcoming book John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life.

Why: In an age when the gamut of pop icons ranges from Ariana Grande to The Weeknd, the continued prostitution of John Lennon’s legacy is not a choice.

https://on.com.au/search/search?parentId=bc670800-f920-11ea-96b7-b132cf2a7536