Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Uncategorized Xanadu Nathan Curnow after the film directed by Robert Greenwald, 1980 for the attractive people there is a wall to skate through it was a joke until somebody told it most of the town murals are dripping red – there is no talking sense to the ugly some try the Biblical Diet to get into shape or wear the breastplate of Saint Patrick some couples get married before they roll it is probably best if you are intoxicated makes no difference if you like the movie there are new spurts of red every day you won’t get through if you wear a helmet it is a watermelon explosion if you fail a place where so many of us dare to go might be the mural on the toilet block the love and the love and the echoes of where neon tubes blink ultra violet egged on by a fever that can’t be denied it is too late to unlock the secrets of fat the runway is lit and the bystanders waiting what commentators say about your face Nathan Curnow Nathan Curnow lives in Ballarat and is a past editor of Going Down Swinging. His latest poetry collection is RADAR. More by Nathan Curnow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 1 6 November 2026 · Friday Fiction Headland Harry Goddard He must have still been sore. I could tell from the winces he made as he scooted down the trail. Some unspoken agreement of not hitting other people’s children — and the circumstances of me not being that type of kid — spared me from the same punishment. I was taken to my parents who agreed I would have to work off the damages, and I must have mowed the lawn once, or cleaned the family car. 4 November 2026 · Film MIFF, Minotaur and the politics of maternal reception Alicia Byrnes Maternal labour is, in the terms I’ve set out here, not labour at all. Noisy, unfocused, mobile, perhaps even sleepy — it is an affront to arthouse film viewing and therefore unserious.