Louisa Lawson (17 February 1848 – 12 August 1920) was an Australian poet, writer, newspaper publisher, suffragist, and feminist.

Editor and publisher of The Dawn – the first journal produced entirely by women, including its printing and despite the efforts of the NSW Typographical Association who refused membership to women and who attempted to shut the printing down, it was published monthly for 17 years. The Dawn had a strong feminist perspective and frequently addressed issues such as women’s right to vote and assume public office, women’s education, women’s economic and legal rights, domestic violence, and temperance. The Dawn also published son Henry’s first book of poetry. Thanks Mum.

In the preface to her book “The Lonely Crossing, and other poems” (1905), the only collection of her works published in her lifetime, Louisa wrote:

““In putting my house in order” I decided to arrange and publish this unpretentious little collection of verses, some of which were composed before leaving school, and others later on with babe at nurse. Those of widowed years were written for solace when under stress of pain and sorrow. Should they find a place in the hearts of the most humble among my countrywomen I shall feel more than repaid for the trouble and cost of publication.”

A fascinating article about Louisa may be found here.

Back Again (1904)

Oh, my boy, come in, do.You’ve come back at last,Two years since we saw you,How the time has passed!

Have a bath and shave first,No — a cup of tea?Think you want a rest worst?Dear, oh deary me!

Look, boy, at your boots, too,All cut with the rocks,Have you brought home with youAny mended socks

They are always tearing?Threw them all away?Alberts you are wearing?Goodness, what are they?

Felt that you were coming,So I wrote to Bob,He says things are humming:And you’ll get a job.

Now, dear, don’t come near me,You’re all over dust,Can you smoke? Oh, dear me.’Spose so if you must.

To My Sister (1893)

Thou’rt sleeping calmly in thy tomb,While I from day to dayStill blunder on amid the gloomOf life’s uncertain way.Thou’rt resting here in perfect peace, Kind Heaven favoured thee,In that it willed thee quick releaseFrom all the cares that be.But thou wert ne’er a child of earth, Ne’er like the noisy crowdWho clustered round our father’s hearth — Thy voice was never loud.And sometimes when the moon at nightShines through the open door,And casts a belt of silver lightAcross our humble floor — I fancy then, my sister dear,That back to earth and meThy spirit floats; I feel thee near,Though thee I cannot see.I stretch vain arms that would enfoldThee in a fond embrace,Forgetting long, long, years have rolledSince I beheld thy face.‘Twas well thou could’st not long remainWhere care would be thy lot,Nor would I have thee back again,God knows, dear, I would not.In vain in thought I backward strayAnd search from year to yearTo record find of e’en a dayUnclouded by a care.Joy never twined a wreath for meIn May-day’s sunniest hours,But sorrow’s tares were safe to beInwoven with the flowers.It hovers o’er me through the nightAnd robs me of my rest,Nor flies when morning sunbeams lightThe dew on nature’s breast.But storms may beat about thy graveAnd rage above thy head;It frets thee not how winds may rave — Safe in thy silent bed.And I could oft without regretResign each cherished schemeAnd rest with thee, so care besetAnd weary do I seem.But not while shines an harvest sunMust slumber come to me,At eve, with full day’s labour doneSweeter the rest will be.

This critically-acclaimed film dominated this year’s Academy Awards winning Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing and Best Original Screenplay out of 11 nominations. It has won a host of other awards making it one of, if not the most, awarded film of all time. For a sci-fi fantasy kung fu film that is crazy, but the crazy doesn’t end there.

Co-directed by the Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), first thing to say is … this film is bonkers with not just a capital B but an all caps BONKERS. 

There’s a character named Deirdre Beaubeirdre (ask a 10 year old) for starters and an everything-topped bagel singularity (the properties of the singularity cannot be described without an established theory of quantum gravity,[1] but it’s one shaped like a bagel, ok? Ok). There are conversations between rocks. With subtitles.

Second, this film is weirdly also a salve for your existential crisis with its parallel universe, Sliding Doors-on-cocaine story device which ultimately ends up a moving tale of family, acceptance and gratitude – just with some martial arts, butt plugs and a Spanx-free Jamie Lee Curtis thrown in. 

“The bagel will show you the true nature of things” (Jobu Tupaki)

Curtis is hilarious and terrifying, and well-deserving of her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Ke Huy Quan (the little kid from ‘80’s hits Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies but now a man, obviously) was also fantastic but the lead Michelle Yeoh (Police Story 3: Supercop, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of A Geisha, Crazy Rich Asians) has received the most accolades for her performance as Evelyn, a dissatisfied and anxious laundromat owner being audited by the IRS studiously ignoring her daughter’s worsening depression and her husband’s desire to reconnect. To go into plot details would spoil things; it is enough to say Evelyn goes on an adventure to save the multiverse and her daughter. 

The lead character was originally written for the great Jackie Chan.  The film’s action sequences are awesome, not least because they all involve 60 year old Yeoh wielding serious kung fu chops.  But this is familiar ground for Yeoh who got her cinematic break in Hong Kong martial arts films, often with Chan himself. If you think that’s cool, this film is a gift to film/pop culture boffins with many Easter eggs* to pick up on.

Yeoh is great in this film (and every other she has been in) and her Academy Award acceptance speech highlighting the plight of female actors over 30 and Asian actors generally was very inspiring – but the Best Actress award and the accolades seemed, upon my first watching the film, … a bit over the top. Yes, the film was a thought-provoking outing but also very silly in an “I just had a dream where our fingers were hot dogs” kind of way. There is a lot to distract the viewer from the performances of the cast. Like trying to work out what is going on.

Because the pace is frantic. If you found Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge overwhelming this might not be your thing; just swap out the dancing and singing for kung fu and you get the idea. But there is much, much more to absorb here compared to the glitzy schmultz of MR – and that is a frustration with the film. It is very clever, but you will have to watch it (at least) twice to pick up all the references. If you are not inclined to watch it twice (I initially was not but did so in order to write this review), much of the “hey that’s …” might pass you by or, if there is a quick flash of recognition, you do not have time to process it – which is unsatisfying – but also leaves you with a sense you are not hip enough to immediately get it and I do not need that kind of disrespect from a film. I know I’m not cool, thanks.

That said, the second viewing was immensely more enjoyable. By a long way. The plot sorted, I had brain space to literally sit back and enjoy the show. And apart from an awkward scene transitioning the plot from reality to fantasy where Evelyn is still worried about her taxes while another version of her husband tells her she needs to save all the universes, Yeoh is fantastic.

Before I saw the film, I was upset to learn that fabulous actress and comedian Awkwafina (Crazy Rich Asians, Nora from Queens) had to turn down the role of Evelyn’s daughter Joy but Stephanie Hsu (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel) is brilliant as a disaffected young person hellbent on destroying herself and the multiverse as the dreaded Jobu Tupacki. 

There is a wonderful score (it was nominated for Best Score), including a song by David Byrne (Talking Heads) and the costume design is superb (another nomination) if you are into that (I am, and the costumes are fabulous, especially Ms Beaubeidre’s comfortable pants and Jobu Tupaki’s unique haute couture).

This movie is a colourful reminder to be kind to ourselves and others when it all gets too much. But it is so much more.  A riff on various video games and children’s books. A reflection on our internet lives. An essay on nihilism.  PhD theses will be written.

“Here, all we get are a few specks of time where any of this actually makes any sense” (Joy)

The story arc is very tender (who isn’t moved by the thought of a parent losing a child either through death or disconnection?) in contrast to the action. It made me want to hug my children and organise a long lunch with my mates so I could tell them I loved them. To be sure, there has been no other film like it. I have vacillated between thinking it is a seriously teary ground-breaking philosophical piece of film art, or an audacious joke film by two hipsters who someone gave a lot of money to (although they created most of the visual effects at home during covid with very limited funds because … young people). I actually think it is both. Enjoy.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is available on various streaming services.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxN1T1uxQ2g (Official trailer)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_singularity.

* “Easter eggs” are hard to spot cultural references, for those of us over 50.

Podcaster: Richard GuilliattReviewer: Megan Brooks

Episode 1: Australia’s Most Evil Dad

The existence of so-called ‘repressed memories’ remains a controversial idea in clinical and legal settings. Now often referred to as dissociative amnesia – a trauma-dissociation model based on the idea that ‘the body keeps the score’ even if the person cannot recall or has had no awareness of the severely traumatic experience supposedly causing the mental state[1] – the reliance on previously repressed memories as evidence of abuse received much attention in the 1990s. A recent bibliometric analysis of the PubMed search engine revealed very little scientific endeavour on the topic of dissociative amnesia and repressed memory over the past decade or so and concluded the most likely explanation is that dissociative amnesia is not a widely accepted concept.[2]

This latest podcast from The Australian, responsible for the smash hit crime podcasts The Teacher’s Pet and Shandee’s Story, looks at what is regarded as one of this country’s worst cases of domestic child abuse. 

Many of you will recall the case that made international headlines the allegations were so disturbing.  After a 10-week trial in the NSW District Court, a jury found the parents involved guilty of 86 charges brought in relation to the sexual and physical abuse of two of their four children over a period of 13 years. In 2016, the father received a sentence of 48 years – the longest sentence for child abuse in Australia’s history; the accomplice mother received 16 years. Their appeals to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal and High Court of Australia have failed. They maintain their innocence, as do their two other children who claim they saw no sign of the sustained and exceptionally violent abuse metered out upon their siblings.

Episode 1 details the increasingly serious allegations made by one victim as her mental health deteriorates in late adolescence in the context of her participation in elite level sports, coached by her ultra-competitive and disciplinarian dad.

She is ultimately diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and evidence she gives of the abuse is said to be based on memories she had previously suppressed due to their traumatic nature. The jury was not informed her memory of the alleged abuse was relatively recently recovered during psychotherapy. With access to boxes of material now made available to the family, expert evidence of the possible unreliability of the recovered memories – apparently not used by the NSW Legal Aid lawyers who took over the case when the defendants ran out of money – along with intriguing details of buried evidence, previous allegations against the father, and a magistrate involved in the matter at an early stage who allowed one victim [to stay] at his house pre-trial, this podcast promises to be as riveting a drama as The Teacher’s Pet and Shandee’s Story. Whether it will have similarly shocking legal consequences for those involved remains to be seen.

Available on Crime X on Apple podcasts and to subscribers of The Australian.

[1] Otgaar, H., Howe, M. L., Patihis, L., Merckelbach, H., Lynn, S. J., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Loftus, E. F. (2019). The Return of the Repressed: The Persistent and Problematic Claims of Long-Forgotten Trauma. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(6), 1072–1095.

[2] Pope, H. G., Schnabel, J., & Hudson, J. I. (2023).  Current scientific interest in dissociative amnesia: A bibliometric analysis. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 37(1), 42– 51.