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The Australia Letter<\/em><\/a> is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. This week\u2019s issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter based in Melbourne.<\/em><\/p>\n In August 1972, a collective of writers, mostly in Melbourne, released the first issue of a biweekly broadsheet that would chronicle a certain corner of Australian countercultural life \u2014 starting with a scathing piece on the \u201cyoung press baron\u201d Rupert Murdoch.<\/p>\n Over a run of about 40 months, The Digger newspaper featured fervent opinion columns, extended reviews and cultural listings, as well as what it described as \u201cgonzo accounts\u201d of Australian life. It touched on topics including sex education, Aboriginal rights, republicanism (\u201cIt\u2019s time we chucked the Queen of Oz and her GG,\u201d an abbreviation for governor general, \u201cinto the sea\u201d) and the joys of riding a bike.<\/p>\n The paper was connected with some of the most important names in Australian literature of the time, and it played a significant role in starting the Australian novelist Helen Garner\u2019s career as a writer. (The Digger folded in 1975 when, as the founder Phillip Frazer wrote in 2018, it \u201cran out of money and lawyers.\u201d)<\/p>\n Five decades later, another Australian publication is channeling some of that same irreverent spirit and commitment to, as its editors put it, \u201creportage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Paris End is a longform Substack newsletter<\/a> started around a year ago by the writers Cameron Hurst, Sally Olds and Oscar Schwartz, whose ages run from about 25 to about 35. (Mr. Schwartz has previously contributed to The New York Times.)<\/p>\n The newsletter is named for the local nickname for the eastern end of Collins Street in downtown Melbourne \u2014 once home to the city\u2019s artistic community<\/a>, and today the site of luxury hotels and glitzy international fashion boutiques. (The newsletter does not exclusively, or even primarily, trade in stories from that part of town.)<\/p>\n The area is \u201ca soulless pastiche of a high-end part of any city,\u201d Ms. Olds said over coffee in Melbourne. \u201cIt\u2019s such a strange part of the city, with such ideas about itself. So that\u2019s a really fun space to write into.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a ridiculous thing to call it,\u201d Mr. Schwartz added. \u201cIf you have to call something the \u2018Paris end\u2019 of your city, then you\u2019re not Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n The Paris End does not aim to mimic any particular publication. But it does share some DNA with earlier iterations of The New Yorker\u2019s \u201cTalk of the Town,\u201d with style inspiration from Ms. Garner (herself a reader of The Paris End) and the Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and writer Clarice Lispector.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Its readership is kept secret, though it is in the order of \u201cthousands,\u201d Mr. Schwartz said. He describes it as the \u201cDarwin,\u201d Australia\u2019s eighth-largest city, \u201cof newsletters.\u201d<\/p>\n At least anecdotally, its impact among Melburnians looms large. Earlier this year, I made a special pilgrimage to purchase panettone from a small Italian cake shop that The Paris End had recommended \u2014 only to be served the same panettone by a friend two nights later, who had made an identical trip after reading the same tip.<\/p>\n On occasions when I have forwarded a favorite article, I have almost always been told that the recipient has read it already. Those included features on the \u201cmale lesbian\u201d community, a 1966 U.F.O. sighting in Melbourne\u2019s southeastern suburbs and a recent academic conference about \u201cAntipodean Modernism.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Stars,\u201d a monthly review column, gives ratings to a hodgepodge of things \u2014 cultural phenomena such as films local and international; the best legal and illegal nude swimming spots; mackerel dumplings; where Melburnians should spend winter (Bali) or play summer night tennis (Carlton). It is sometimes unabashedly niche, celebrating not just a scene, but a scene within a scene.<\/p>\n During the worst part of the pandemic, Melbourne spent over 260 days in lockdown, and the return to normality has been slow and painful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe really went through it,\u201d Ms. Olds said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s kind of a project of hyping the city up \u2014 for myself, wanting to re-enchant the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Here are the week\u2019s stories.<\/p>\n Are you enjoying our Australia bureau dispatches?<\/strong> Like this email?<\/strong>
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