After something to peruse this weekend? Welcome (or welcome back) to our weekly roundup of fantastic writing from around the Guardian. If you’re in the mood for something longer form, don’t forget to check out our list of the 100 best novels of all time – where you can tick off the ones you’ve read.
Whatever takes your fancy, enjoy settling in with a good read. (Just maybe don’t do it on the loo.)
1. Tony Albert on turning racist ‘Aboriginalia’ into art
Tony Albert’s new solo show at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art features thousands of pieces of what he’s dubbed “Aboriginalia”: cups, tea towels, playing cards and figurines. These all ostensibly depict Aboriginal people and designs, Dee Jefferson writes, but are created by non-Indigenous people – and often caricatured, exoticised or kitsch.
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“People sometimes ask: ‘How do you even come across this stuff? We never see any of it.’ Trust me, once [you’re aware of it], it’s everywhere.” – Tony Albert
Speaking back to colonial histories: The 45-year-old artist tells Jefferson about his deep relationship with these often painfully racist materials. “I have reconciled with this stuff. I can use it, I can abuse it. I can interrogate it.”
How long will it take to read: five minutes.
2. Wallace Shawn on Hollywood and speaking out on Palestine
For film fans, character actor Wallace Shawn is a treasure. You might know him from The Princess Bride (“inconceivable!”) or as the teacher in Clueless – and the 82-year-old has more than 200 screen credits to his name. But in a crisp, frank chat with Juan A Ramírez, Shawn reveals his disappointment that he hasn’t been given a broader range of roles. “I’ve been sitting here for many decades, totally available.”
Has Shawn’s open support of Palestine cost him opportunities? The New York theatre mainstay is also a longtime member of the leftwing, anti-Zionist organisation Jewish Voice for Peace. He deflects any inference about the professional impact of his views – but says “there have been some consequences to my becoming politically aware”.
How long will it take to read: four minutes.
3. ‘The devil’s child’: the rise and fall of the only female yakuza
This long read about Mako Nishimura is GRIPPING. At 5ft-nothing, she is, writes Sean Williams, “perhaps the only woman ever to have been a full-fledged yakuza, a member of Japan’s feared and rule-bound criminal underworld”.
In almost 40 years, she has never lost a fight. How has she handled male gangsters, Williams asks? “First the legs,” she tells him. He describes her with hands clasped, “maintaining the calm demeanour of a village priest”. “You cut him down with a club or a plank of wood,” she elaborates.
“The devil’s child”: As a teenage runaway, Nishimura renamed herself Mako and got the first of hundreds of tattoos that now cover almost her entire body. These, along with the little finger missing from her left hand, are now the most visible sign of her former life.
How long will it take to read: 11 minutes.
4. From scandal to success: a political playbook
At the turn of last century, an ambitious young Sydney solicitor caused a scandal in a high-profile murder case – and after years of image rehabilitation, became a political leader. While researching Richard Meagher’s fall and rise, Patrick Mullins spotted a pattern in the strategies adopted by disgraced (mostly male) public figures.
Step one: distort legal judgments and outcomes into simple conclusions.
Step two: claim victimhood.
Step three: soften up your audience with good deeds elsewhere.
Step four: work on building up markers of status … and wait.
How long will it take to read: three minutes.
Further reading: Penry Buckley’s profile of the New South Wales corrections minister, Anoulack Chanthivong, has no similar connotations of scandal, but offers a fascinating window on contemporary state politics.
5. Design dos and don’ts for small space living
From furniture with “skinny legs” to making sure spaces work for multiple purposes, three experts who live in tiny homes have shared their best lessons with Doosie Morris.
Open plan is not the answer: “The most sanity-saving design choices keep rooms usable for different purposes by two people at the same time,” says architect Claire Scorpo.
“We get lured into the idea that open-plan living is the best kind of design for small spaces but often that one big space can only do one thing at once.”
How long will it take to read: two minutes.
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