3 months ago
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After a 13-year stint as director at the Art Gallery of NSW, Michael Brand is done, handing over the reins to his former deputy Maud Page.
And it seems like Brand is also done with Sydney – for now anyway. The former director is packing up and relocating north to Brisbane, where he will be based for the foreseeable future.
No new job yet – after more than a decade in one of the biggest roles in the Australian cultural sector, Brand needs a breather. But we hear he is set to do a bit of casual work for the Bhutanese royal family, who are hoping to establish a new museum in the picturesque, pint-sized Himalayan nation.
Former Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand is looking to the north.Credit: Janie Barrett
As far as cultural icons go, Brisbane is better known for the likes of Lang Park and the XXXX brewery on the banks of the Brown Snake at Milton. Jokes aside, the Queensland capital is working hard to build its own cultural capital in its quest to become a proper global city by the time the Olympics rolls around in 2032. It now even has a few restaurants nice enough for Brand’s high-end tastes.
Could Brand be a part of that transformation? Watch this space.
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Meet the press
With 94 seats in the House of Representatives, you’d think the Albanese government might be feeling bold. Bold enough to take on those chumps in the Canberra press gallery, at least.
But the party’s 24 new MPs are still feeling a little timid about starting out at big school. On Wednesday night, the National Press Club hosted a convivial, off-record drinks for new MPs to schmooze with the press gallery.
But not a single member of Labor’s class of 2025 even bothered to show up. To be fair, Wednesday is going-out night in the Canberra Bubble, so perhaps Labor’s rookies were hitting up Mooseheads or chumming with the lobbyists at the dreadful Hotel Realm.
While the class of 2025 includes a few fresh-faced young hacks who probably never expected to win their seats, there are also a few political veterans in the mix, including former Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White, who won the seat of Lyons.
At the National Press Club, the only pollies who put in a good shift were Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young (among the last standing on the Midwinter Ball dance floor a few years back) and the new teal member for Bradfield, Nicolette Boele, who might not stick around if the High Court does something insane after her Liberal rival Gisele Kapterian challenged the result.
Fishy business
To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.
And until recently, Fishbowl, the Aussie-born corporate food court mainstay specialising in a kind of hyperefficient work lunch we’re calling “lanyard slop”, had indeed made it.
Opening in New York under the rebrand Thisbowl, the chain landed with a splash, quickly becoming one of Australia’s buzziest stateside cultural imports since Margot Robbie. On TikTok, the “West Village girlies” were going wild for Thisbowl, sending queues around the block.
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Grown-up media also got in on the hype. The New York Times wrote about Thisbowl favourably. “Can the sad desk lunch be saved?” wondered the Wall Street Journal, noting that Thisbowl was a “bowl place where you could take a date”.
But what TikTok giveth, TikTok taketh away, as social media started spreading the news that some diners had found Thisbowl a far from fresh experience for their bowels. That chatter made it into an article on Grub Street, New York Magazine’s online food-centric spinoff.
“In June, the TikTok user @anyonecancookforreal shared a video alleging three of her friends got food poisoning after eating at the restaurant. The comments section was loaded with similar complaints, and many called out the salmon,” Grub Street senior writer Chris Crowley wrote.
The article cited several Google reviews and firsthand accounts all pointing to bad experiences with the salmon.
But in a statement, a Fishbowl spokesperson maintained their salmon was “sashimi grade” and told us that they’re received just a single, isolated Google review.
“Approximately one week after the initial report, a journalist at Grub Street contacted us seeking comment. We later learnt that the individual who made the complaint is a friend of a Grub Street employee,” they said.
Fishbowl said the article conflated that Google review with an unrelated incident, where an employee was unknowingly infected with a contagious illness that affected some staff.
“It was swiftly addressed with a third-party food safety expert and in full co-operation with the New York Department of Health, who found no issues with our food safety or handling practices,” they said.
This house of Lipa
Here’s a tune you don’t hear every day. English-Albanian pop sensation Dua Lipa has thrown her support behind one of Australia’s most loved writers, Helen Garner, via social media. Talk about an unlikely duo.
Lipa is spotlighting Garner’s This House of Grief in her popular book club this month. The 2014 non-fiction novel follows the trial of Victorian man Robert Farquharson, and is widely considered an Aus-lit masterpiece.
When contacted by CBD, Garner told us she was a bit embarrassed by all the international attention, especially after having fielded multiple media requests all day.
Perhaps this is a lesson to us all: we must keep our national treasures, and not just when they’re going viral on Instagram.
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