Good morning. One story in Sydney held the headlines this week, and will for months to come, as Australia’s Jewish community reels from a mass shooting at what should have been a joyful Hanukah celebration on Bondi beach.
You can find all our coverage of the attack here. There’s no one story to single out – I take my hat off to all my colleagues and our contributors, who have filed stories of heroism, careful, clear-eyed reporting and astute political analysis, commentary and personal reflections that carve out space to think and grieve.
“And perhaps, no matter what your beliefs,” David Heilpern wrote on Thursday, “it is time to phone or email that Jewish friend, acquaintance or even stranger and say ‘I am so sorry for your loss. I stand with you for peace’.”
Below: some shorter, lighter stories. Then Five Great Reads is taking a break until the second week of January.
Until then, here’s to a safe and peaceful new year.
1. Italian food is not what you think
You think you know pasta. But food professor – and, importantly, Italian man – Alberto Grandi writes that “the myth of traditional Italian cuisine has seduced the world. The truth is very different.”
Why should I care about this? Italian cuisine recently got its own slot on the Unesco “intangible” heritage list.
So … what is the truth? “A saga of hunger, improvisation, migration, industrialisation and sheer survival instinct. It is not a serene lineage of grandmothers, sunlit tables and recipes carved in marble. It is closer to a national long-distance sprint from starvation.”
Or to put it another way, Grandi thinks Italy needs to stop being so insecure about its image – and the rest of the world should look for the real Italian food evolving daily in homes, restaurants and workplaces.
How long will it take to read: three minutes
2. Josh Safdie is scared of electromagnetic catastrophe
You may know Josh Safdie for the films made with his brother, Benny: Uncut Gems, Good Time and Heaven Knows What – or as the Guardian’s film editor, Catherine Shoard, describes them, “frenetic chancer yarns”.
Last year, the brothers parted ways and Josh made Marty Supreme: a Timothée Chalamet-starring comedy about a hustling table tennis ace. He speaks to Shoard about aliens, latent Jewish anxiety and why men are lost.
How long will it take to read: about four minutes
Time to watch the movie: Marty Supreme is the No 5 film in our UK countdown and No 4 in our US list. Tell me if you liked it: australia.newsletters@theguardian.com
3. ‘I probably wouldn’t have got anything done if there wasn’t a school like this’
Sisters Trevanna and Deslie Ahoy have navigated parental loss, housing insecurity and pregnancy – twice – while completing their HSC at the Macleay Vocational College in Kempsey. Ella Archibald-Binge and Bec Lorrimer report on their tough road to graduation – and a unique schooling model enabling young mothers to keep studying.
Dunghutti ties: “After school hours the principal would drive around and hand out food to the community and stuff like that,” Trevanna says, explaining why she was drawn to the school. “On holidays they would take kids out to the beach.”
“It was one thing our dad wanted us to do, to finish school,” Deslie says. “I just did it for Dad.”
How long will it take to read: a few minutes
4. Pippi Longstocking was born to stand up to Hitler
Did you know the author of these beloved children’s books had a secret wartime job at the postal control centre? Nor I. But as Geoffrey Macnab explains, the Swede Astrid Lindgren went from a quiet middle-class life in 1939 to a gig steaming open and reading private and military letters.
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“As long as you’re only reading about it in the paper you can sort of avoid believing it, but when you read it in a letter … it suddenly brings it home, quite terrifyingly.” – Astrid Lindgren, writing in her diary
A new documentary about Lindgren’s wartime diaries reveals how the horror of the second world war seeped into her life – and how creating the kind, iconoclastic Pippi, “the antithesis of Nazi ideology” – was an antidote.
How long will it take to read: less than three minutes
5. ‘A film of fire and sadness’
If you watch one film over Christmas, make it … Michael Mann’s 1995 masterpiece Heat (warning: the movie involves guns and the image on this link may inadvertently remind some of Sunday’s events in Bondi).
Why is the Guardian writing about it this week? It just turned 30.
Who is in it, you ask? Pacino and De Niro – “two legends the movie’s trailers flexed by their rhyming last names only,” this piece points out.
Why is it so good? The author here is clearly a deep fan, so I throw to him: “What really stands out is the way Mann loosens up the cops-and-robbers formula and lays out a tapestry of lost souls in LA, its remarkable tenderness and lyrical beauty transcending the genre tropes.” I agree! Plus: “The tragedy in Heat ultimately boils down to work-life balance.” Relatable.
How long will it take to read: less than three minutes
Further watching: Radheyan Simonpillai’s adoring tones remind me of a startlingly gushy essay I once had to read for uni, which claimed Point Break was “a giddy work of art”. But you know what? It is. Watch Point Break.
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