Fresh and New has moved over to a new service called Buttondown. If you’re already a subscriber then you will have moved over, but if not, then you’ll…
It’s alive! I’m conscious that the last time I wrote to you was a month ago! But its been busy.

February 2021

Thanks to Dan Cohen’s tweet going viral after the last episode I need to welcome a lot of new readers! So “hi!” (and thanks Dan!)

January 2021

Hello 2021. Feels just like 2020 with a tiny bit less dread, right? Or maybe just a different kind of dread. I started writing this one several times…

December 2020

I’ve been doing a bunch of talks recently and several folks asked me to write them up rather than let them stay ephemeral moments. This shift to the…

November 2020

Things are looking a little different today. Like everyone I know, we anxiously awaited the US election results, constantly refreshing web pages with…

October 2020

725 to zero. It’s been a remarkable turnaround in Melbourne. The lockdown has been hard and relentless but tonight there is much celebration. Even our…
There’s a hot wind blowing through Melbourne and for the past two nights the tall eucalyptus tree outside the bedroom window has been rattling the…

September 2020

The recently released new Google Arts & Culture experiment, Gael Hughes’ An Ocean of Books, is a cute but telling example of the challenges of large…
The Whitney’s recent exhibition cancellation controversy is yet another reminder that an art museum is not the same as a social history museum. Power…

August 2020

August is a cold month in Melbourne. Our rental is particularly poorly designed with only low efficiency airconditioning that pretends to be heating. No…
Fifty. I didn’t expect to get to fifty of these little missives when I started writing them. When I started this writing there was no real goal in mind…