This is the first Monthly Musings, a selection of words, pictures and conversations on my radar each month.
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Title image: A photo of the beautiful spring magnolias at Farmhouse Dederang in Victoria's High Country.
On Feminism and Femininity
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about feminism, and I blame Beyonce. The discussion of the tension (or contradiction) between feminism and femininity has reached fever pitch in the last few weeks, and it’s forced me to really think about what resonates with me and what my take on it is. Read more.
WORDS
A film about Yolngu elder Djalu Gurruwiwi - a spiritual keeper and master didgeridoo craftsman - is in it's final stages. | Research confirms the 1970's Club of Rome predictions that we're headed for collapse. | My friend Rachel Service has been churning out some great content, including this one on 4 ways to break perfection paralysis. | Reflections on three years of farm life from Jonai Farms - Happiness is hard work. | The ethics of travel boycotts. | Ross Gittins explores how ethics, politics and economics are blurring together in Australia. | How to make your weekends more awesome. | The importance of doing things that don't scale. | Research is pointing to conscientiousness as the one-trait-to-rule-them-all in terms of future success, both career-wise and personal. | “Something is always far away… After all we hardly know our own depths.” Brain Pickings' Maria Popova on Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost. | Umair Haque ponders whether we've run out of big world changing ideas.
PICTURES
Paris through the lens of the legendary Pentax 67. | Snippets of 11 movies that will make you want to go travelling, all in one place. | The questions we ask - short film about what pushes us to do amazing things. | Old Habits - a series on the dwindling numbers of missionary nuns living in rural Australia by Lani Holmberg. | This has surely got to be one of the all time cutest little kids you'll ever see. | Time is nothing - a timelapse across 17 countries. | I found myself feeling very jealous of this amazing food tour of the Victorian High Country, all beautifully documented in full colour. I don't feel too bad though, because I did have my own version a little while back... | The last season of HBO's stunning Boardwalk Empire kicked off with flashbacks to the end of the 19th century, and glimpses of 1930s Havana.
CONVERSATIONS
Arianna Huffington was recently in the country ahead of the launch of the Huffington Post in Australia / New Zealand. Here she is talking to Marie Forleo about redefining success. | Lessons in reason on the 100 year anniversary of the Great War. | "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" - Amanda Vanstone talks to John Allen Gay about voluntourism, joyful benevolence, and the White Messiah Complex. | Uncommon in Common - a front porch for the internet. | A feminist podcast reading of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's cultural significance. | 20 years since his seminal album Grace was released, and 17 years since his death, Double J profiles Jeff Buckley for their returning J Files series. Still blissful. | Terry Gross interviews one of my favourite film makers, Richard Linklater, about his extraordinary film Boyhood. | Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton announced today that their incredible 28 year run on At the Movies will end in 2014.
“You must unlearn what you have been programmed to believe since birth. That software no longer serves you if you want to live in a world where all things are possible!”
-Jacqueline E. Purcell, via The Mind Unleashed