Tag: Sam Cooney

What, me worry?

19 July 201123 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog5 Comments

Sam Cooney I have a friend in Melbourne who is a paste-up artist. Under the guise of the moniker ‘Drab’ he creates small and large scale pieces of art, prints them onto jumbo sheets of paper and—normally in the quiet post-midnight hours—sticks them onto surfaces in and around the city and its suburbs. For as long as I have known him and followed his work (we used to live in an old weatherboard together with a few other sharehouse denizens and so I was able to watch him from go to whoa) I have been jealous. Not because I want…

Hans Fallada and being outside when everyone else is inside

6 July 201123 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog1 Comment

Sam Cooney It was my birthday recently—it’s okay, you weren’t to know—and as a gift my girlfriend’s parents sent me a copy of Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada. I had never heard of Fallada before reading this novel, and I found it quite a curious read in every meaning of the word curious (intriguing, strange, etc.). Published in 1947, the story opens in 1940s Berlin, in a Germany in the throes of National Socialism. Revolving around a couple’s humble resistance to the Nazis as they write and drop anti-Nazi postcards around the city, the narrative quickly spirals—either up or…

the gap between ability and ambition

29 June 201123 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog5 Comments

Sam Cooney On the 22nd of February of this year I saw a man on fire. He had doused himself head to toe in a couple of litres of petrol and had set himself alight. He flailed about and he ran straight, a human comet hurtling, looking like someone drowning in a private ocean of flames. It was like the movies and it was very much not like the movies. It happened on a wide busy street in Paris, France, in front of the main courthouse that sits next to the La Sainte-Chapelle, a tourist attraction with its beautiful stained-glass…

male and female and masculine and feminine

24 June 201123 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog4 Comments

Sam Cooney When I was young and getting really stuck in to reading, I thought Enid Blyton was a man. I’m not sure why, I just did. Sure, now I know Enid is a girl’s name, but to eight-or-nine-year-old me it wasn’t. I just never bore it in mind; it wasn’t important in relation to the enjoyment of the words. It’s not like the child me ever thought to take his nose out of the pages in order to dissect characters like Moon-Face and The Saucepan Man in respect of the accuracy of the representations of their sex, nor did…

Freunde und Liebhaber, ich bin (k)ein Berliner

19 June 201123 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog2 Comments

Sam Cooney Chances are the wizardry of your web browser automatically deciphered into English the title of this blog post, but in case not, it translates roughly as Friends and lovers, I am (not) a Berliner. I’m a Melbourne lad, a writer and editor of sorts, born and raised by windy Bayside beaches, and right now I live in Berlin, Germany. There are several explanations I give to people who ask me why, and some of them are even true some of the time. But this here Southerly blog is not the place to muck about, so I’ll tell you…

June Monthly Blogger: Sam Cooney!

17 June 2011 SoutherlyNews2 Comments

We had a wonderful month of thought-provoking posts from Phillip Ellis – thank you, Phillip. Next up, we have writer Sam Cooney, blogging for us all the way from Berlin. Here’s his bio: Sam Cooney is a freelance (underworking) writer and editor. Suckled and reared in Melbourne, he right now lives in Berlin, where he pretty much stands all day staring at the city like it’s one of those Magic Eye images from the 90s. Some recent-ish writings can be found in The Lifted Brow, Newswrite, The Rumpus and aroundabout the internet. He has recently edited fiction portfolios for The Lifted Brow and Overland, and has close (sexy)…

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