In the principal essay, Helen O’Neil recalls another landmark event: the gala opening of the Elizabethan Theatre in Sydney in 1955, which heralded a ‘new model of cultural policy’ based on private philanthropy and public funding. O’Neil’s admirable insights into support for ‘culture’ raise many questions, but she provides fewer answers beyond a plea for a new subsidy model and reinstating the arts ‘ratbag’. Geoffrey Atherden’s witty essay on art and sport cuts through the complexities. Calling for increased arts funding, he argues against allowing market forces to identify talent, particularly as regards new, transgressive work: ‘Cutting edge or avant-garde art is not popular, almost by definition. It is ahead of public taste; where we’re going next, but don’t know it. And it’s rarely supported by the market.’

This is echoed in a cogent essay by Robyn Archer, and Julian Meyrick joins Atherden in highlighting the huge disparity between funding for sport and for arts in Australia. Frank Moorhouse considers the newly designated child-minder role of the Australia Council in the wake of the Henson ruckus, and what this suggests vis-à-vis regulation of artistic endeavour.

For those fearing cultural analysis Stendhalismo, Brent Balinski’s comic memoir recounts needling a shock-jock amidst the said Henson debate, while James Bradley provides a candid recall of battles with depression. Brian Castro’s Sebaldian ‘Notes to a Biographer’ is lyrically metafictional.