Gary Shteyngart, Jennifer Mills and Rhett Davis ask what's next
Gary Shteyngart is the Russian-born, American-based author of novels including Absurdistan, Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends. His latest book Vera, or Faith, is about a precocious child living in near future America, where cars have attitude and equality is under threat. Gary talks about the worrying parallels between the USA and Russia and the precarious state of immigrants in the country.
Jennifer Mills (Dyschronia and The Airways) is one of the most exciting experimental writers in Australia. Her latest novel, Salvage, is a propulsive novel about sisterhood, space and what happens after ecological collapse. She also talks about wanting her books to be of use to readers.
And staying with the environmental theme, Geelong based author Rhett Davis's second book Arborescence continues his fascination with trees that featured in his debut, Hovering. Arborescence is about a movement of people who want to grow roots and become trees (and they do, in their billions)! It's also about the absurdity of modern-day life.
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ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Contaminated foam returns to central-west NSW river, more potent than ever
Fresh mounds of contaminated foam have been discovered on a central-west NSW river, with laboratory tests showing it contains the highest amount of the forever chemical PFOS yet. The foam's reappearance on the Belubula River near Blayney comes a year after a group of concerned landholders first called in the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) over foam blanketing the river they rely on for irrigation. Appearing in similar locations to last year, tests show the new foam banks contain 540,000 nanograms per litre of PFOS — 67,500 times the latest recommended drinking water guidelines. PFOS is among the thousands of poly and perfluroalkyl chemicals collectively known as PFAS, and has a wide range of industrial uses. The foam was tested at a Sydney lab after scientist Ian Wright collected a sample to help the community gather data. Cattle farmer Frances Retallack, who made last year's foam discovery, also advised the EPA of the most recent pollution event. "After last year's events, we've monitored [the river] closely," Ms Rettalack said. Ms Retallack recorded video of carp in the Belubula River gulping mouthfuls of the foam. "If you look closely, it's full of dead bugs," she said. A spokesperson for the EPA confirmed it had been made aware of the foam's reappearance. "We have contacted the community to seek more information about this latest report of foam … and will work with water scientists on any further investigations," a spokesperson said. The agency said it had conducted an "extensive surface water monitoring program in the Belubula River" since the initial discovery of foam in May 2024. "We measure pollutants across a range of conditions and seasons to capture any variability in results," a spokesperson said in a statement. Part of the regulatory response also imposed new licence conditions relating to PFAS monitoring upon nearby gold mine Cadia Valley Operations, landscape supplier Australian Native Landscapes and Blayney council landfill whose operations are part of the Belubula catchment. The watchdog said its own test results indicated the foam wasn't wholly PFAS and that it was likely "coming from some other source containing a mixture of surfactants". Impacted landholders have pushed back on the EPA's findings to date, saying its testing program wasn't "robust science" and have alleged information was "left out". "The reports made no attempt to look at the toxicity of the foam, its locations on the river, the volume of [river] flow or the toxic fish [we found]," Ms Retallack said. In a letter to the community, the regulator rejected those allegations. An Australian-first scientific paper on the subject established how the 2024 foam was created. Written by Ian Wright, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney, alongside Helen Nice and Amy- Marie Gilpin, the study used data collected while assisting affected communities along the Belubula River with research support. The paper established background levels of PFOS in the Belubula River were enough to create significant amounts of foam, once water was aerated in colder temperatures. The foam "hyper-concentrated" the amount of PFOS in the river, with one sample showing levels 18,750 times that of the river water. "It's a steep river so there's lots of turbulence, lots of rapids and very small waterfalls," Dr Wright said. His research was also able to establish the Belubula foam was gathering heavy metals at "hazardous concentrations". "It was often a really strange combination of metals, including cadmium and mercury, copper and lead," Dr Wright said. Dr Wright said the process occurring in the Belubula River was something scientists called "foam fractionation". "As bubbles rise through a liquid, some dissolved metals, PFOS, other substances in the water actually stick to the bubbles." Newcastle University's professor Ravi Naidu established the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, known as crcCARE. He described Dr Wright's findings as "important and novel". He suggested the paper would have benefited from a clearer breakdown as to how the foam was processed for analysis given its delicate form, but that further investigation would be beneficial. "Future studies should include the assessment of likely real exposures: platypus, livestock or humans, together with PFAS fingerprinting," Professor Naidu said. This year, the National Health and Medical Research Council released revised drinking water guidelines for the four types of PFAS most commonly found in the Australian population and environment — PFOS, PFOA, PFBS and PFHxS. The new guidelines for PFOS, which appears to be the main PFAS pollutant in the Belubula, were slashed from 70 nanograms to just 8. Dr Wright said PFOS levels in the Belubula River water creating the foam averaged around 20 nanograms per litre — more than double the revised drinking water limit. There are no guidelines for livestock or irrigation, however PFOS levels in the Belubula exceed the EPA's ecological threshold by 86 times. "The Belubula River is an endangered ecological community," Dr Wright said. "These concentrations just in the river are bad." So far, the EPA has resisted seeing the foam as an indicator of river health or a risk to human health. "Foams in water can collect and concentrate chemicals from the surrounding environment to much higher levels," a spokesperson said. "Higher levels of a chemical contaminant in a foam compared to the level in the surrounding water does not necessarily result in additional risk to human health, if contact is avoided." But Dr Wright describes the foam as being "concentrated patches of pollution", which he says raises serious questions about exposure pathways. "There is nothing stopping livestock wading out or [people] pumping it from the river for irrigation for watering livestock. "I think there should be targeted warnings issued for all users of the waterway in the area. The Belubula's foam problem is now on the radar of those further down the river. Winemaker Sam Statham heads up the Belubula River Users Group, representing landholders between Mandurama and the town of Canowindra. He says irrigators downstream of the foam banks were starting to take an interest. "I raised it at the AGM last week and we agreed the issue should be taken to Lachlan Valley Water," Mr Statham said. Mr Statham will host a community event in September, which he hopes will raise awareness of the issue among the downstream community and give people the opportunity to share knowledge. "Someone might get some reassurance from [meeting up]. Someone else might realise there's a problem. "I'm definitely concerned — I don't want PFAS in my wine."
News.com.au
4 hours ago
- News.com.au
Terence Stamp, veteran actor and star of iconic Aussie film, dead at 87
Veteran British actor Terence Stamp, who starred in one of the most beloved Australian films of all time, has died at the age of 87. A prolific star of the stage and screen who started his acting career in 1960, Stamp made a name for himself with a breakthrough performance in his 1962 movie debut Billy Budd, for which he earned an Oscar nomination. He was also known for his performances in blockbusters like the 1978 Superman movie and its sequel, and 1999's Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. But it was his groundbreaking performance as transgender woman Bernadette Bassenger in the 1994 Aussie smash Priscilla, Queen of the Desert that endeared him to Australian audiences and reignited his acting career well into his 60s. Stamp was nominated for a BAFTA, an AFI Award and a Golden Globe for his moving performance in the cinema classic. The actor's family told news outlet Reuters that he died on Saturday. 'He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come,' they said in a statement. 'We ask for privacy at this sad time.' Stamp's final screen role was in the 2021 film Last Night in Soho. Making such a splash at the start of the 60s with his debut film role, Stamp became one of the biggest stars of the time – thanks to his prolific work rate and also his relationship with model and fellow 60s icon Jean Shrimpton. He later confessed he struggled to find work after the decade ended. 'I was so closely identified with the 1960s that when that era ended, I was finished with it,' he once told French daily Liberation. Stamp married once, on New Year's Eve 2002. He was 64 and his 29-year-old Bride was an Australian-Singaporean woman named Elizabeth O'Rourke who he'd met in Bondi, Sydney. The couple divorced six years later.
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Meg Washington — Gem
Meg Washington has been thinking a lot about her role as a musician. Her new album Gem (which is Meg reversed) is the four-time ARIA winner's first album of original music since 2020's Batflowers , her last for a major label before going independent. In the past five years, she's released a full-length cover of The Killers' debut album Hot Fuss , continued being the voice of Bluey's teacher Calypso, and co-wrote How To Make Gravy , the film inspired by the iconic Paul Kelly song of the same name, directed by her husband, Nick Waterman. Those achievements would frame Washington as the picture of success, but those extra-curricular milestones also prompted her to ponder - as she told Zan Rowe for Take 5: "Why make music in capitalism? Especially when it's no longer your only gig?" The answer? Because it's in her nature. A moving revelation that is the beating heart of Gem . ' I do it because I love it' Washington sings on 'Natural Beauty', the album's sweeping, soul-baring centrepiece. As the piano-led ballad reaches its climax, strings and classical guitar rise around Washington's stirring declaration: 'I just want to live for something more than money / If that's all that there is Then I just want to sing / And I'll do that for free…' Enveloped by the grey grind of domesticity, commercialism, and a bleak 24hr news cycle, music is the essential, expressive constant Washington desires. It's deeply ingrained and it refuses to be silenced. Despite being the album's lyrical manifesto, 'Natural Beauty' is something of a sonic outlier on Gem , which its creator has described as a conceptual 'tropical fantasy beach world' to escape to. Working closely with producer Ben Edgar (whose credits include Dope Lemon, Matt Corby, and Angus & Julia Stone), Washington establishes a balmy, shimmering soundscape right form the opening title track. Running at a quality over quantity length of nine tracks over 34 minutes, these are songs that soothe and swoon. Washington sounds more relaxed than ever, her words typically more poetically abstract than autobiographical, among arrangements that focus more on live instrumentation. 'The Sound of the Feeling' features gentle guitar plucks and percussion, synth washes and resonant tom drums, all gently buzzing with life — like the comforting chatter of insects at night. Steamy stand-out 'Shangri La' evokes an expansive coastal paradise with its gently trotting Spaghetti Western guitars (a la Hermanos Gutiérrez), glazed harp dancing across the sparkling vista as Washington sings sensually about nature. That mood is perfectly captured in the music video (directed, naturally, by Waterman). 'Kidding' picks up on the same vibe, offering a series of optimistic self-affirmations over a bubbling synth-and-beat-driven refrain: ' I believe in the future/I am strong'. Fittingly, 'Starlife' is all spacey guitars and cosmic, swooning melodies, before returning back to earth — and a cosy hammock — for 'Honeysuckle Island'. The track's slow, laidback strumming eventually reaches a dramatic peak of strings and dramatic timpani roll as Washington romantically captures how creativity is her utopia. 'Golden Orb Blues' is a jaunty ode to self-commitment that features a spoken-word decree from US troubadour Kevin Morby on the importance of individual artistic expression. "It is not yours to determine how good it is, or how it compares to other expressions. It is your business to keep the channel open!" he intones like a spiritual guru; the latter phrase repeated like a mantra. The closing track is 'Fine', which was first sung by Brendan Maclean and a prison choir in the How To Make Gravy movie. The Gem version is a calm duet with the Gravy Many himself, Paul Kelly, their voices dovetailing over mellow guitars into an optimistic parting note. 'I'm the reason that I sing / I've been looking at the future and everything's gonna be fine'. Any sense of existential angst Washington might've felt going into making her fifth album is quietly dissolved by its resolution. "[Gem is] about finding something very precious within yourself and refusing to give it up," Washington says. "Insisting on art. Insisting on beauty." It seems simple really. And as long as she keeps singing songs that insist on those principles, Meg Washington should find an attentive audience who desire hearing them.
