ART · COMMENTARY · CULTURE · FICTION · NEWS · NON-FICTION · PHOTOGRAPHY · POETRY · SATIRE VOULEZ-VOUS Edition Five 2022 Publishing the University of Melbourne's student writing and art since 1925 THE UNIVERSITY’S SUSTAINABILITY PLAN 2030: A PLEDGE TO ACHIEVE CLIMATE POSITIVE STATUS BY 2030 WITH NO MENTION OF DIVESTMENT? Joel Duggan p. 17 WHY ARE WE SCARED OF THE PILL? Sophie Breeze p. 24 SOLACE, SOLANGE Birdy Carmen p. 80
Lastly, we must ask, what do we, as ATSI people, need? At the end of the day, our sovereignty over this continent, its archipelagos, its ecosystems; our connection to it; our responsibility to it, exist regardless of whether this is recognised by the Crown, or by non-First Nations people. This sovereignty stands irrespective—we do not need this formal recognition to know this, and to carry out our responsibilities to Country. Our sovereignty over this continent is a fact to be asserted—not a condition to be negotiated, bartered, sold or leveraged. content warning: reference to colonialism and genocide in no specific detail
In this edition—Voulez-Vous—we ask, “Do you want?”
As people politicised by our mere existence, every act of solidarity, self-care, and autonomy is an act of resistance. To live our richest fulfilled and connected lives is to deny concerted processes aimed to control or extinguish us.
Yaama, Farrago acknowledges the owners of the Country on which it is printed and produced, the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung of the Kulin Nation. We would also like to pay our respects to the Bunurong and Wadawurrung clans of the Kulin Nation, on whose lands the University of Melbourne also has campuses, as well as all the mobs represented by First Nations students at the University. We recognise their ongoing responsibility to, and ownership of, the continent. We acknowledge the leadership of elders past and present, as well as the leadership of young First Nations people.
As the debate around the formal structure of how this autonomy looks enters its death spiral, with debates between Treaty, Voice and Constitutional Recognition models, it is essential that we deeply, insightfully and patiently ask the questions: What do we want? What do First Nations people want? What do the complex, diverse and factional communities and interests within Aboriginal politics want? What do our Elders want? What do our young people, who will inherit the burden of responsibility over Country, want? To homogenise us is to belittle the reality of our diversity.
Acknowledgement of Country Written by Patrick Mercer (Wadawurrung, Kulin)
For First Nations people, this is a pertinent question, as matters of self-determination define our history and relationship with colonialism. For us, this can take many forms.
Reconciliation on this continent must reflect the principles of free, prior and informed consent. It must be a process of deep listening to us, reflection and adequate resourcing to allow for autonomy of our own affairs.
CONTENTS Illustrated by Jessica Norton 1
COLUMNS 10 A Day at UniMelb: Galleries Weiting Chen 29 The Facets of Madness: “Does (This) Feel Like Home to You?”; But Puppets Have No Say Donna Ferdinando 40 A WIP Around the Workshop: Character Voice, Style, and Points of View—How Slight Touches Can Alter the Reading Experience Lamis, Creative Literature and Writing Society (CLAWS) 42 Lost in Translation Riley Morgan 46 Filling Up the Static: Apples and Daft Punk S Theocharides 58 Ordinary MosquitoPhenomena:Bites Helena Pantsis 60 Oyster: Apocalypse Sophia Zikic 68 Hocus-Pocus Recipes and Rituals: The Future Is Yours, the Future Is Cheese Marcie Di Bartolomeo 70 Murder on the Dancefloor: Tales From Late-Stage Hospitality The Dying Venue Rupert Azzopardi 74 DIY Craft Guide: Zines Weiting Chen
REGULARS 02 Contributors 03 Editorial 04 September–October Calendar UMSU 06 UMSU Updates Sophie Nguyen Millie Macwhirter 07 Southbank Updates Xiaole Zhan 08 Office Bearer Reports NEWS 13 News-in-Brief The News Team 14 The Motivation Behind World Leaders’ Public Congratulations for Prime Minister Albanese Lachlan Forster 16 “Need More Advanced Content”: Students’ First-Hand Review of Innovative Discovery Subjects Vanessa Chan 17 The University’s Sustainability Plan 2030: A Pledge to Achieve Climate Positive Status by 2030 With No Mention of Divestment? Joel Duggan 18 If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Reflections on Being a Woman in a Footy Crowd Dominique Jones SATIRE 19 Dear Diary: The PM’s Retrospective Journal Jack McMahon 20 Satire-in-Brief The Satire Team
NON-FICTION 24 Why Are We Scared of the Pill? Sophie Breeze, Staff Writer 26 A Review of Tilly Lawless’s Nothing But My Body: The Importance of Nuance in Conversations About Sex Work Maggie Slater, Staff Writer 30 Fizzle & Pop Noa Shenker 32 Being In On It Bella Farrelly 44 In Defence of the Art of the Bathroom Emma Barrett, Staff Writer 47 Seizing the Opportunity of Op Shops Frank Tyson RADIO FODDER 34 ‘Get Down’ to the Newest ‘HistoRemix’ in Town: A Review of Six the Musical Larissa Brand 36 Radio Fodder's Declassified Gig Survival Guide: October Edition Carmen Chin 38 Perth Indie Royalty Chey Jordan One Year On: He’s Doing ‘alright!’ Olivia Ryan 39 In Conversation With Newcastle Indie Folk Musician Austin Mackay’ Isabella Ross CREATIVE 59 Bitter Preserved Sybilla George 62 Lustrous Eleanore Arnold-Moore 64 Snowdrop Matthew Lee 65 monday morning Akanksha Agarwal 66 Opening Night Jocelyn Saunders 67 ana/tomise Aeva Milos 71 I woke up with vertigo, and now I can’t get up Tah Ai Jia 72 Femme Fatale Tandie Banana 73 Mercutio Tandie Banana 76 North of the Swan Zoë Hoffman 78 January 26th Jocelyn Saunders 79 at the edge of memory Hugo Russell 80 Solace, Solange Birdy Carmen ART 12 Featured Art Chau Hoang 22 Featured Art Taya Lilly 23 Featured Art Amber Jepsen 48 Featured Art Janna Dingle 57 Featured Art Taya Lilly PHOTOGRAPHY 49 Featured Photography Xiangyun Li Michael BenAkashAnushkaSadeghiTiwariAnilNair@thephotostudioLevy
This magazine is made from 100% recycled paper. Please recycle this magazine after use. Farrago is the newspaper of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU). Farrago is published by the General Secretary. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of UMSU.
Illustrated by Jessica Norton2
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TEAM Aeva ZacTanishaSherryRheaPadmoOliviaMaiaLochlainnIsabellaBeatrixAlexiaMilosShawBrennemanRossHeleyEverist-MiglioreRyanWidyasenoChatterjiTayKhanEaton
Bella VelentinaSophieS.JalandoniNicoleNicholasMaggieMaggieSerranoLauraKaeJoelJoelFelixEmmaEmmaDanielCrystalFarrellyKoaSnowdenBarrettXerriKimberDugganKeithGiraoQuinteroSlaterStonerSpeedBernadetteFitzgeraldBreezeBoulter ILLUSTRATORS Amber Jepsen Amber Liang Arielle Vlahiotis Ashlea ZoeYichengWeitingSallyRileyPamelaNinaNiamhMonicaMelanaMeadowMatildaBarrowMarchellaManyuLeilaniJoanneJessicaIvanIndyGraceEvanEllaEdieChauCathyCaseyBirdyAyushmaanBanonNagarCarmenBoswellChenHoangSpiersCaoGouliosReeveSmithJeldresNortonGuoLeonWangRusciano-LilfordNguyenUcedaYuCorbettHughesPiechowiczMorganYuanChenXuEyles Zoë Hoffman Vanessa XiangyunChanLi Zoë Hoffman COLUMNISTS Donna Ferdinando Helena Pantsis Jack SRupertMarcieSocietyLiteratureLamis,McMahonCreativeandWriting(CLAWS)DiBartolomeoAzzopardiTheocharides COLUMNISTSGRAPHIC Riley WeitingSophiaMorganZikicChen COLUMNISTSONLINE ChathuniAries Gunatilake Emma Xerri Ishan Morris-Gray NEWS TEAM Aeva AlessandraMilos Akerley Archie Bear Bayley VanessaTianyuSelinaRebeccaPatrickMiriamMeganMaxKayraJoshJordanJoelEllaDominiqueBrightonHorneWankeawJonesMcCartneyDugganDiNataleDavisMericDowellTanTanLitwinSextonReubenichtZhangWangChan SUBEDITORSNEWS Asimenia Pestrivas Beau Kent Daisy MaxLeGeorgeEmmaAssauwBarrettTyurinThuyLinhNguyenDowell Rico ZaraStephanieSarahSulametPembertonUmbrellaFeil SUBEDITORSCREATIVE Aeva Milos Ava XiaoleRowanRomanyNinaNaliniMelanaMaryLeahLauraJazIzmaHelenaClemBreanaNunanGaleaMcNabbPantsisHaiderThieleCharltonMacdonaldHamptonUcedaJacob-RoussetyAdamsClaringbullBurridgeZhan Zoë Hoffman Zoe Keeghan SUBEDITORSNON-FICTION Alex ZoeZhiyouZaraYolyThaliaTeganSusanSSophieSarahSaraSamsonMillieMaryLiviaLeahHelenGwynnethFrankEmmaClemBridgetBellaAllegraThomasMcCormackSweeneySchwerdtMcNabbBarrettTysonThomasTranMacdonaldKurniawanHamptonMcKellarCheungVojdaniPembertonLodgeunnieHabgoodFangLyonBlackney(Yuzheng)LiFeilLowEyles Zoë Hoffman WRITERSSTAFF Alain AnimeshNguyenGhimiray EDITORS Charlotte Waters Jasmine Pierce Joanna NishthaGuelasBanavalikar COVER Amber Liang MANAGERS Akash Anil Nair Alexia Shaw Ben BrightonLevy Wankeaw Carmen TrangMaeMadisonJordanEmmaChristinaChinSavopoulosXerriDiNataleBarrHorsleyDau CONTRIBUTORS Aeva TayaTandieTahSybillaSophiePatrickOliviaNoaMichaelMatthewMaggieLarissaLachlanJoelJocelynJannaIsabellaHugoFrankEmmaEleanoreDominiqueCarmenBirdyBenBellaAnushkaAkashAkankshaMilosAgarwalAnilNairTiwariFarrellyLevyCarmenChinJonesArnold-MooreBarrettTysonRussellRossDingleSaundersDugganForsterBrandSlaterLeeSadeghiShenkerRyanMercerBreezeGeorgeAiJiaBananaLilly DESIGNGRAPHIC Alexi AndreaAnannyaO’KeefeMusaleAnnWin Lim Chau ChristopherHoang Prawira Emilia Weeden Janna Dingle Lana SabrinaPhoebeMelanaMaggieEastaughUngUcedaLeeKeQin Ting Samantha Shing Timothy Willett Vincent Escobal Yicheng Xu PHOTO & VIDEO TEAM Akash Anil Nair Alexandra Richardson Ben BrightonLevy Wankeaw Chaital
Elina Pugacheva Issy Abe-Owensmith Joel ZhiyouThaliaSarahSamsonSaanjanaPamelaNikitaDugganMohar-WilliamsPiechowiczKapoorCheungPembertonBlackneyLow
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Voulez-Vous, it whispers. You know what I mean. The question mark is reduced to embers, ready to take its last breath. Charlotte, Jasmine, Nishtha and Jo, 2022
It’s a question that sustains itself, though. This is to say that when no response is received, the question doesn’t fall flat. It hangs in the air, a ball of potential energy which will find a home eventually, whether or not it reaches its original destination. As such, it perhaps says more about the asker of the question, about their relationship with themselves, than the person (or idea, or goal) they’re addressing. It’s a question, but also a statement, and an action—carving out the limits of what you’re willing to do and where you’re willing to go, and cementing this decision, regardless of the responses you receive. To ask voulez-vous? is to begin to mould the clay of your relationship with yourself. You’re treating yourself with strength and gentleness, neither of which can be divorced from the other.
Voulez-Vous’s creative section spans the complexity of inter- and intrapersonal relationships—these pieces reflect on love and lust, beckon the reader to follow them into the heat of an adrenaline-filled moment, and dive into fragmented memories with the potential to haunt or comfort. Non-fiction takes nuance in stride, delving into the complexities of art, subculture and sex work. News is giving voice (as always), asking if the University really cares about students and their demands, asking if men will ever let women enjoy sports, asking how the world views Australia. Visually, this edition’s pages are saturated with dazzling lights and powerful, complex characters who refuse to be contained by the reader’s interpretation, instead gazing right back at them. This edition asks questions of the reader without demanding a response; without begging to be interpreted in any particular way. It’s a bundle of student insight and talent that hopes you will find pleasure, wisdom, or solace, but which bears the same exciting potential no matter what you make of it.
Voulez-Vous, in its essence, is a question. The phrase is haunted by an invisible question mark, sewn precariously onto its end. There’s a note of urgency attached to its tone—it’s awaiting a response, hoping for one, more desperately than it would perhaps like to let on. To ask voulez-vous? is to begin to mould the clay of a relationship. You’re making a move, taking confidence in knowing what you want from the outset. Take it now or leave it—you’re ready, and you’re not going to wait around.
It’s incredibly versatile, and it can’t wait to be absorbed by you.
xxx
Editors EDITORIAL Illustrated by Jasmine Pierce 3
OCTOBER
Monday 03 Tuesday 04 Wednesday 05 Thursday 06 Friday 07 Monday 10 Tuesday 11 Wednesday 12 Thursday 13 Friday 14 Monday 17 Tuesday 18 Wednesday 19 Thursday 20 Friday 21
12Week10WeekWeek11 12pm–1pm Queer Lunch 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus 5pm–6pm Queer and Questioning Support Group
1pm Queer People of Colour Collective 2pm Aro/Ace Collective 5pm Farrago Edition 6 Launch Party 12pm Queer Lunch 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus 5pm–6pm Queer and Questioning Support Group 11am–2pm Union Mart 12pm Trans Collective 3pm–4pm Women and Enbies Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 12pm Trans Collective 3pm–4pm Women and Enbies Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 12pm Trans Collective 3pm–4pm Women and Enbies Collective 10am–10.30am Burnley Coffee Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 3:30-5pm Marketing in the Creative Arts 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus 5pm–6pm Queer Political Action Collective 10am–10.30am Burnley Coffee Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 3:30-5:30pm Creative Arts Collective 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus 5pm Queer Political Action Collective 10am–10.30am Burnley Coffee Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus 5pm Queer Political Action Collective 4pm–5pm Women and Enbies of Colour Collective 4pm–5pm Women and Enbies of Colour Collective 4pm–5pm Women and Enbies of Colour Collective 1pm Queer People of Colour Collective 2pm Aro/Ace Collective 5:30pm-8pm Wordplays & Open Mic Night (Farrago, MACSS & Creative Arts) 1pm Queer People of Colour Collective 2pm Aro/Ace Collective 5pm-9pm Above Water Launch Party (Media x Creative Arts) 12pm Queer Lunch 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus 5pm–6pm Queer and Questioning Support Group For the most up to date info, visit: umsu.unimelb.edu.au/events
9WeekBreak
3pm–4pm Women and Enbies Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 10am–10.30am Burnley Coffee Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 3:30-5:30pm Creative Arts Collective 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus
UMSU /
11am-5pm Tastings Takeover (Creative Arts) 11am–2pm Union Mart 12pm Trans Collective 2pm-4pm Tastings Workshop (Creative Arts) 3pm–4pm Women and Enbies Collective 7:30pm-10pm Tastings Music & Spoken Word Showcase Night (Creative Arts) 10am–10.30am Burnley Coffee Collective 11am–2pm Union Mart 11am-5pm Tastings Takeover (Creative Arts) 3:30-5:30pm Creative Arts Collective 5pm–6.15pm Yoga at Burnley Campus 5pm Queer Political Action Collective 7:30pm Tastings Theatre Showcase Night 11am–5pm Tastings Takeover (Creative Arts) 2–4pm WorkshopTastings(Creative Arts) 5–6pm Queer and Questioning Support Group 5–6.15pm Yoga @ Burnley Campus 4pm–5pm Women and Enbies of Colour Collective 11am-5pm Tastings Takeover (Creative Arts) 4pm Women & Enbies of Colour Collective 7pm Clubs and Societies Awards 7:30pm Tastings Closing Night (Creative Arts)
SEPTEMBER Monday 19 Tuesday 20 Wednesday 21 Thursday 22 Friday 23
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Monday 26 Tuesday 27 Wednesday 28 Thursday 29 Friday 30
1pm Queer People of Colour Collective 2pm Aro/Ace Collective Illustrated by Ayushmaan Nagar
/ art Artwork by Edith Spiers 5
I attended the first meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Group which is meant to govern the implementation of the Sustainability Plan for the University. This demonstrates some seriousness about climate action and institutional responsibility—but there is still lots to be done. The group is filled with experts from different fields ranging from environmental law to climate scientists across the University. I also wrote, in collaboration with Education Academic and Disabilities, a submission to the consultation process about the decision on rescinding the University’s Vaccination Mandate Policy. We feel strongly about the safety of students on campus especially during winter and a spike in cases. Unfortunately, the policy has been rescinded. We will still advocate for a strong public health campaign and continue to make sure accessibility is on the agenda.
—Sophie Nguyen, UMSU President UMSU Students’ Council passed a motion ‘UMSU Stands with Palestine - BDS and Solidarity Policy’ in Council 13(22). The motion was brought forward by a student. UMSU recently engaged an independent agency to facilitate a consultation process with relevant stakeholders, including relevant proPalestinian and Jewish bodies on campus. This consultation aimed to present Councillors with students’ viewpoints on this issue and the motion was considered with said consultation process and its outcomes in mind. UMSU continues to encourage respectful debate of international affairs on campus and deplores and denounces bigotry and hate speech in all its forms. Our highest priority, as always, is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all students. Please feel free to reach out to the President at president@union. unimelb.edu.au or the General Secretary at secretary@union.unimelb.edu. au should you have any questions or concerns.
We have our UMSU General Election coming up! The nominations have closed and your candidates have been announced, with more information to be found on our website! Voting will take place from the 5th to the 9th of September where you’ll be able to have your say.
Illustrated by Edith Spiers
UMSU Updates
We had Winterfest! Despite being evacuated, it was overall a great success. Congrats to the OBs who had great engagement from the students and to the CME team for pulling out the big guns. Can’t believe I met Cosmo’s Midnight, they were sooo slay!
—Millie Macwhirter, General Secretary
We’re moving into our new Student Precinct building during the midsemester break. We’re excited to pack up all our things and move into a beautiful new space! Sad to leave behind the Ida and its new cocktails on tap, definitely grab yourself an espresso martini if you’re around.
UMSU / 6
Illustrated by Edith Spiers Southbank Updates Hey arty beans! Congratulations on making it to Semester 2! We know it isn’t easy surviving through demanding nine-to-five rehearsal timetables, practising your forty hours a day, and trudging through countless essays... You are all fantastic for making it this far! Keep an eye on our socials for our Queer, POC, and Disabilities Collectives running on alternating Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. These are cosy spaces for making new friends and snacking on free food! Last but not least, keep your eyes as peeled as a purple banana for our Southbank Ball in collaboration with the Music Students’ Society and the Production Society which is set to be held on 28 September at 7pm in the San Remo Ballroom. That’s all folks! Keep arty-ing and partying. —Xiaole Zhan, UMSU Southbank / UMSU 7
General Secretary | Millie Macwhirter
Happy winter from the Burnley crew! We have several awesome ongoing events for you to check out. Come to our weekly Coffee Collective for a delicious beverage and a chat. Our new yoga series is just what your body has been waiting for. If you’re ready to learn something new, hop on zoom for our technical workshop series covering R, GIS, and more! Keep an eye out for more social events by following us on Facebook and Instagram! facebook.com/burnleystudentassociation/ @umsuburnley
Creative Arts | Prerna Aggarwal and Marcie Di Bartolomeo
Clubs & Societies | Eleanor Cooney Hunt A report was not submitted.
I have been slightly less busy as I took leave and enjoyed having zero emails and lots of sunshine! I am keen to get back to work and look forward to holding all our regular UMSU meetings and carrying out all your admin needs and wishes! Also, a reminder that students can collect RATs from the Union House Info Desk for free so you can test! Keep testing, masking up and stay safe all!
Education Academic | Ethan Georgeou and Moira Negline
Tastings is upon us, and it’s a super-duper exciting time! We and our fabulous Production Team have been preparing for our fantastical festival of hopes and dreams in the NSP’s Arts & Cultural building (aka our new home) which will feature our amazing Tastings artists and all their marvellous ideas come to life! We also had a marvellous Mental Health in the Creative Arts workshop in collaboration with the Southbank Department and the Hey Mate Project, where we explored all things mental health related as creatives! We have also been working closer and closer towards Above Water’s slay launch, which will be at Southbank’s Betwixt Bar in October!
Ed Ac is full steam ahead post-NUS Ed Con, yeah student unionism and bin chickens! We’ve been reassessing for Semester 2 and chipping away at projects, from promoting our activism with Badge Making, to endless panels and committees. Some of our priorities at the moment are Special Consideration, some upcoming collaborations with other Departments and COVID-19 Safety. We strongly encourage students to reach out and get involved! Education Public | Ruby Craven Hi everyone! I’m so excited for such a fun Semester 2 that we’ve got coming up. To keep in touch and make sure you’re the first to hear about our events, make sure to follow our social media on Facebook at UMSU Education, Insta @umsueducation, and/or get in touch via email at educationpublic@union. unimelb.edu.au. Cheers, Ruby xx
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UMSU
President | Sophie Nguyen Please refer to UMSU Updates on Page 6. Disabilities | Betty Zhang A report was not submitted. / Burnley | Kaitlyn Hammond
Activities | Bella Henry A report was not submitted.
Queer | Rook Davis and Rose Power
Indigenous | Brittney Henderson and Harley Lewis
A report was not submitted.
Women’s | Kraanti Agarwal
People of Colour | Hiba Adam and Kyi Phyu Moe Htet
Howdy fam! We had a fantastic time seeing you all down at our WinterFest with jam donuts and jamming tunes. We hope to catch you again at our free BBQs every Tuesday, our Southbank Ball on 28 September, and at collectives! Welfare | Disha Zutshi A report was not submitted.
Environment | Chelsea Daniel and Zachary Matthews
An report was not submitted.
Hello! Your enviro pals here! We have just come off WinterFest where we ran a bead-making workshop. We had an overwhelming amount of support and had over double the attendees we were planning on. Thank you to all those who came. Our big change this semester is our Clothes Swap moving to the Old Zambreros with Union Mart. Still donate when you wish to, you just don’t have to go upstairs anymore to do it. More info is on our social media. The other two big events are a Film Society Collab and another South Lawn x Clothes Swap event.
As usual, Queer is super busy! We were so thrilled with the response to the Rainbow Roller Rave as part of WinterFest’s Carnival Day and we hope that the next OBs will do it again next year. Aside from that, we’re slowly planning our annual magazine CAMP as well as Queer Ball, all while our weekly collectives and events go on as usual. The uni has also reached out for our consultation on the LGBTIQA+ Action Plan, where we can hopefully establish more concrete pathways to deal with queerphobia on campus.
/ UMSU 9
The Indigenous Department has been bustling! Most of our collective energies these past months have gone into organising and facilitating our Indigenous Nationals team. Over the mid-year break, we took ten students up to Brisbane QLD to compete against Indigenous University students from all over the country in basketball, netball, volleyball, and touch football. Unfortunately, during our final day members of the team tested positive for COVID-19 and were required to quarantine for an additional week. Our efforts are predominantly going into organising our next big event—Blak Ball, which will be held in early September.
Looking forward to finishing our term with love, strength, and resilience.
Southbank | Jack Doughty, Alex Birch and Xiaole Zhan
graphic column / 10
‘A Day at UniMelb’ by Weiting Chen / graphic column 11
art / NEWS Artwork by Chau Hoang 12
COVID-19 cases increase
2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games Sport is just the beginning! The 2022 Commonwealth Games have come and gone, with Australia stealing the show with an outstanding medal haul—a total of 178 medals, beating England by two. Australia dominated in the pool, with five podium sweeps. Emma McKeon became the most successful Commonwealth Games athlete with 11 gold medals to her name—she is also Australia’s most decorated Olympian. Other stand-outs include Georgia Godwin ending the English run in the all-around; the Diamonds winning gold against Jamaica; the Australian Women’s Cricket team winning the in augural gold medal. The 2026 Commonwealth Games will take place in four regional sites in Victoria: Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, and Gippsland. Vale Archie Roach and Olivia Newton-John Australia lost two music icons at the beginning of August.
Donald Trump Claims the FBI Raided His Home
In his 2022 autobiography The Boy from Boomerang Cres cent, former AFL player (Carlton/Adelaide) Eddie Betts describes a 2018 Adelaide Crows leadership training camp that caused him, his family, and other players emotional distress. Betts claimed that this camp led to him leading the Crows. Other Crows players have come out to share their experience in solidarity, with the club formally apologising to Betts. “I have always said to peo ple that kids are never too young to start learning about racism,” Betts wrote. “Being Black, I have no choice but to be political in order to survive in Australia ... I had no choice about it from a very young age.”
/ news
In early August, former US President Donald Trump claimed that “a large group of FBI agents” raided his estate in Mar-a-Lago and broke into his safe. “After work ing and cooperating with the relevant Government agen cies, this unannounced raid on my home was not nec essary or appropriate … Such an assault could only take place in broken, third-world countries … Sadly, America has now become one of those countries, corrupt at a level not seen before,” he said. Farrago believes he is exaggerating. The Department of Justice has yet to publicly confirm the reason for the search, but the ABC writes that it has “been linked to the possible mishandling of government secrets” by Trump.
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Illustrated by Niamh Corbett
2018 Adelaide Crows Leadership Training Camp
NEWS-IN-BRIEF
Melbourne International Film Festival August 2022 marks the 70th Melbourne Internation al Film Festival (MIFF) and the return of the in-person program, last seen in 2019. MIFF consists of 18 days of cinema, special anniversary events, live gigs, immersive experiences, curated talks, and a Dolly Parton-themed party. MIFF was opened by ‘Of an Age’, a movie following a short but lingering romance between two young men over one summer’s day in 1990s Melbourne, directed by Australian Goran Stolevski. By the time you read this, MIFF will be over—Farrago encourages you to go next year. content warning: death, racism, trauma, Stolen Generations in no explicit detail; Donald Trump
As of August, there were 7,100 COVID-19 deaths in the first seven months of 2022 (according to Actuaries In stitute). This makes COVID-19 the third most common cause of death so far—Victoria currently (as of August 9) has 673 active cases in hospital and 25 cases in ICU. As such, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has urged Vic torians to do their “small part”, having announced that more than three million free N95 and KN95 masks will be distributed across state run testing sites, community health services, and Victoria’s public transport network.
Australian singer, songwriter, and Aboriginal activist Archie Roach died on 30 July after a long illness, at the age of 66. He is perhaps most known for his song ‘Took the Children Away’—a song detailing his experience as part of the Stolen Generations. He was one of Austra lia’s most distinctive and celebrated performers, who will be remembered as a “truth-teller with a unique skill in bringing people together”. Australian singer Olivia Newton-John passed away just nine days later, on 8 Au gust at the age of 73. She passed away peacefully—in September 2018, she revealed that she was treating can cer at the base of her spine. Newton-John is known most for her role in Grease as Sandy, however, her enormous contributions to cancer research will be remembered.
Subsequently, Prime Minister Ardern’s quick congratulations for Anthony Albanese was expected, calling him right as he was “on his way to give his speech to supporters”. Ardern further called the TransTasman relationship “strong and enduring”, “regardless of leader, regardless of party”. Arderns good spirits are likely an attempt to butter up the Labor party before looming row over the former administration’s ‘501’ deportation policy, which saw New Zealanders living in Australia being deported on the basis of character as opposed to criminal record, is brought to light.
Justin Trudeau congratulated Anthony Albanese on Twitter and through an official statement made by the Canadian government, which sought to “deepen relations” between the two nations, as well as signposted the “common values, and shared priorities” Illustrated by Amber Liang
news / 14
Boris Johnson—the United Kingdom
Written by Lachlan Forster
The backbone of a traditional Tory foreign policy is a strong relationship between Great Britain and its former colonies. Subsequently, Boris Johnson was quick to congratulate the new PM on Twitter, stating he was enthusiastic regarding “our comprehensive Free Trade Agreement [and] the AUKUS partnership” and pointing out the closeness of Australians and Britons.
Jacinda Ardern—New Zealand Australia and New Zealand are joined by the hip, often lumped together by the international community for our geographical proximity and cultural similarities.
Albanese has maintained that “Australia’s national interests” are his prime concern as regards deportation policy, forecasting a serious disagreement between the two Prime Ministers. Nonetheless, the well wishes of the New Zealand PM were warmly welcomed and there is expected to be little breakdown in the Australia–New Zealand relationship as pertains to travel, trade and security.
As the news of Prime Minister Albanese’s election spread across the world Saturday night, the customary congratulations from Australia’s allies rolled in, wishing the new PM and his Labor cabinet well for the future. But in politics, nothing is as simple as it may seem, and even the most customary message of goodwill has some motivation behind it. Thus, the question must be asked, what do the various world leaders have to gain from a public congratulations towards Prime Minister Albanese?
The Motivation Behind World Leaders’ Public Congratulations for Prime Minister Albanese
Albanese subsequently called Johnson, to affirm “the strength of Australia’s close relationship with the United Kingdom”.
In the wake of Brexit, a free trade agreement with Australia was seen as an overwhelming win for the Johnson government, and as such, maintaining economic ties between the nations is essential in signposting the stability of the post-EU British economy. The AUKUS partnership, meanwhile, which the Labor party have pledged support for, is essential for the UK to maintain its position as a proactive defensive power.
Simply, Australia is a legacy ally of the United Kingdom, and a steady partnership between the two, especially as a CHOGM meeting looms for June, gives Britons psychological security that its former colonies still regard the nation as the motherland, a necessary effect as the UK continues to lose its relevance as a superpower.
Justin Trudeau—Canada
Although the congratulations is short of pushing for AUKUS to become CAUKUS, it does demonstrate to Canadians that Trudeau values the relationships his nation upholds, and in light of recent data showing that Australia is the highest regarded nation amongst Canadians, the Canadian PM knows which relations are important.
Just before the Quad Summit between Australia, India, Japan and the United States in Tokyo, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to congratulate Albanese, pointing to India and Australia’s “shared priorities in the Indo-Pacific” as a key point of cooperation between the two nations. Modi and Albanese both face challenges from China, as the CCP has made a point of strengthening their relations with the Solomon Islands and Pakistan, threatening Australia and India likewise. Subsequently, Modi has maintained that “global issues of mutual interest” are fundamental to his cabinet’s relationship with Australia. Furthermore, a joint comprehensive trade agreement between Australia and India, signed last year, is sought to continue, even with the change of leading party in Canberra.
Narendra Modi—India
Prime Minister Bainimarama was the first leader from the Pacific to congratulate Albanese, heralding the Labor parties policy to “put climate first”.
The reluctance of the previous administration to pledge support to climate action was a thorn in the side of numerous Pacific nations, who felt the immediate impact of rising sea levels on their shores. Furthermore, Australia has been crucial in helping the Fijian economy recover through tourism, and as such, Prime Minister Bainimarama would feel heavy pressure to maintain cordial relations with Australia for the sake of Fiji’s future.
Frank Bainimarama—Fiji
Much like the aforementioned Israel, Kosovo relies on diplomatic support and recognition from across the world to be legitimised. Australia became one of 97 countries to recognise the sovereignty of Kosovo in 2008, during the Rudd government, and the bilateral relations of the two nations have continued to this day, with President Osmani hoping to bring ‘our two countries and people closer together’ during Albanese’s Premiership. Osmani evidently hopes the sentiments of the cabinet that recognised her country will continue into Labor’s 2022 foreign policy as pertains to European states.
Vjosa Osmani—Kosovo
To read the full article, visit: farragomagazine.com/news/article/farrago/The-MotivationBehind-World-Leaders-Public-Congratulations-for-PrimeMinister-Albanese/ Illustrated by Amber Liang
Naftali Bennett—Israel Tweeting in Hebrew, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett hopes to “deepen that friendship & strengthen the bond” shared between Israel and Australia. Australia, much like the USA, has provided consistent diplomatic support to Israel in various international institutions, such as the United Nations. With this, as well as Albanese shutting down a motion from shadow Labor backbenchers last year to boycott the Jewish state, Bennett likely hopes to maintain the ideological support Israel receives from Australia and its minority Jewish community.
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of Australia and Canada. He also thanked Scott Morrison for his “valuable partnership”. Trudeau came under fire last year from the opposition conservative party for failing to advocate for Canada on the global stage. A particular point was made of the nation being left out of the AUKUS deal, as opposition leader Erin O’Toole maintained the nation was “becoming irrelevant” under Trudeau’s leadership.
“The tutoring team and I are in regular communication to finetune our approach week by week; I’m also planning on running a mid-subject survey as well as the usual end-of-subject sur vey to gather feedback,” he said.
Rachel, transferring from the Swinburne University of Technolo gy to study Arts at the University of Melbourne, argued that Arts Discovery (the foundation subject for Arts students) is repetitive to her former learning and should be optional for students.
“We look at the entire research process: how to put a project together; how to run it; and how to be an ethical research er. Most importantly, rather than being told what to learn [as happened in the old Arts Foundation subjects], we will teach students how to learn for themselves,” they said.
Subjectivity continues to be the issue of the assignments.
“If anyone did proper research projects or essays in high school, they would have known about a lot of [the content]. I and a couple of others were at university last year but switched degrees, so we know it already.”
To avoid boxing students in the creation, Musical Perspectives welcome students to interpret the prompts through various forms in their assignments. Understanding the concerns from students about the instruction and teaching, the subject coor dinator, Associate Professor Elliott Gyger, outlined the plan to improve the learning experience this semester.
Hughes16
“[W]e’ll be looking closely at [the assignment and its rubrics] of the subject and will adjust as needed to provide the best possible experience for future students.”
“It seems inappropriate to take notes [from the guest speak ers] because it is more about individual experiences,” she said.
While Rachel is expecting more challenging modules in Arts Discovery, Bachelor of Music student Amelia, enrolling in Mu sical Perspectives, is struggling to summarise her learning de spite engaging lectures and tutorials.
First-year students from the Faculty of Arts and Music demand more specific topics and objective grading criteria for discovery subjects, while both Faculties promised to improve the subjects. From 2022, new undergraduates have to complete a discov ery subject run by their faculty in their first semester and pass the subject to meet the prerequisite for graduation.
Students from all faculties are encouraged to continue commu nicating with teaching staff via email or end-of-semester survey about their experience of the Discovery subjects.
“A fundamental part of the subject design is to encourage the development of a scholarly identity in Arts through under standing the diversity of research projects and possible out comes through an Arts education.”
“Need More Advanced Content”: Students’ First-Hand Review of Innovative Discovery Subjects
Written by Vanessa Chan by Nina
“I do think it’s a good option as a subject for those who haven’t done a lot of research before uni,” she said. Arts Discovery has replaced all six old foundation subjects tar geting student specialisation and interest. After hearing feed back from past students, Rachel praised the sophistication in narrow topics. “[An] Arts [degree] is so broad in and of itself. I think making the foundation subject even broader doesn’t really work … Students need more advanced content, like the old Arts Foun dation subjects,” she said. Nevertheless, the subject coordination team of Arts Discovery, Professor Jacqueline Dutton (Head), Dr Kay Are (Arts Teaching Innovation), Dr James Bradley and Dr Mei Li (Arts Teaching In novation) reckon this subject is still “vital” for all students and explained the change in teaching approach focusing on writ ing an essay.
“The marking criteria are very ambiguous, for instance, be ing marked on creative thinking, which is quite subjective,” she added.
Amelia described the group assignment that required her to explain the inspiration of an original composition from field recordings as “very open”.
“I did ask my tutor about the form of the assignment, for in stance, PowerPoint, video or performance. And she said it was whatever we thought was most appropriate.”
Similarly, tutors for Arts Discovery will collect students’ opin ions after Week 6 to improve the teaching in the second half of Semester 1.
news / Illustrated
The University’s investment portfolio is managed by an ex ternal company who are subject to independent assessment by the University to ensure they align with the Sustainable Investment Framework.
The third pillar—walking the talk in the University’s opera tions—prioritises the University’s “ambition to become a true exemplar of sustainable community”. They plan to achieve this through the promotion of climate resilience; healthy ecosys tems on and off campus; healthy water cycles; a just and cir cular economy with ethical, environmentally conscious supply chains; and responsible investment.
Despite the years-long campaign by UMSU Environment and University students, there was no direct commitment to divest ment from fossil fuel companies in the Plan.
Although responsible investment is described as a priority, the University has promised only to achieve carbon positive status across the institution and its investments. This does not pre clude continued investment in fossil fuel companies so long as the University is carbon positive in gross terms.
The first pillar—amplifying action through campus and commu nities—is focused on “climate leadership” through optimising energy usage and emissions across the University and its sup ply chains, using the University’s respected position as a higher education institution to signal the importance of sustainability across the sector and broader society.
The Sustainability Plan 2030 forms part of the University’s broader Advancing Melbourne program, which aims to bol ster Australia’s international reputation as an “ambitious, forward-thinking country”.
This would be in contradiction to the Sustainability Plan 20172020’s objective to “have divested from, or be in the process of divesting from” any investments “that do not satisfy the require ments of the University’s sustainable investment framework for managing material climate change risk” by 2021.
UMSU Environment claimed that “no divestment [had] oc curred at the University of Melbourne” as of February 2022.
The University said that the most recent assessment reports that the primary fund manager had made “significant progress in its approach to climate change, and the carbon intensity of our investment portfolio had reduced”.
The Sustainability Plan 2030 has founded its strategy upon three pillars: amplifying action through campus and communities, mo bilising knowledge for action, and walking the talk in the Universi ty’s operations. Within each pillar are multiple individual priorities and principles aiemd at guiding that domain of action.
The second pillar—mobilising knowledge for action—aims to encourage research into sustainability while instituting further sustainability practices, a respect for Indigenous knowledges and partnerships that emphasise cooperation on sustainability.
One key commitment includes achieving carbon neutral certifi cation by 2025, and then climate positive status by 2030.
Past Farrago reporting indicates that the University’s connec
The University’s Sustainability Plan 2030:
Supplementing this move toward climate leadership is a cultiva tion of “campuses as living laboratories” for promoting sustain ability solutions and inhabited by a “community of sustainability learners and practitioners”.
Farrago reached out to UMSU Environment for comment but did not receive a reply.
/ news Illustrated by Arielle Vlahiotis 17
Developed over eighteen months “following extensive consulta tion with the University community”, the Sustainability Plan 2030 plans to build upon the work of the Sustainability Plan 2017–2020 with a renewed emphasis on “deep collaboration across [the] in stitution” and encouraging “work across all areas”.
For the purposes of achieving climate positive status, the Univer sity will be including emissions from its investment portfolio as part of the target. This investment portfolio includes fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco and has been a consistent target of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Environment Department’s Divestment Campaign.
Written by Joel Duggan
The Plan outlines the University’s sustainability commitments for this decade in hopes that the University can lead in con tributing to a “global sustainable future” by addressing climate change and environmental crisis.
A Pledge to Achieve Climate Positive Status by 2030 With No Mention of Divestment?
On 25 May, University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Dun can Maskell announced the launch of the University’s new Sustainability Plan 2030
tions to fossil fuel companies extends beyond investment, with corporations like ExxonMobil being permitted to host recruit ment drives on campus.
Written by Dominique Jones
Many explanations have come to mind. The one that strikes me as being the truest is that it protects me. It may be that this performance allows me to be unlike the wom en whom these men level their discrimination against.
It’s been ingrained in me that this is what being a footy fan looks like—and once the gates open and the siren blares it overcomes me.
But next time I’ll try to win back pieces of myself in this space. I won’t purposely hide my body hair with pulled up socks and long sleeves. I’ll unreservedly speak up when I’m uncomfortable. This will be my way of avenging myself amongst the mediocre men that surround me in the footy crowd.
I trade an extent of my femininity for more masculine traits, ensuring I’m not an outlier in the cesspool of tes tosterone. Just enough to be considered a legitimate fan, but not too much to be known as the “annoying chick next to us”. But then it happens and my ability to perform is shaken, but not shattered.
It’s problematic that I can stomach this and continue my act. So then why do I do it?
If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Join ’Em: Reflections on Being a Woman in a Footy Crowd
It’s a wintery Friday night at the MCG. The lights crash down on me. I breathe in the frosty air as the yellow ball beams towards the middle of the posts. Goal. With an overpriced mid-strength beer in one hand, I yell “C’MON” as my fist rises into the air. Is this really me? Let’s unpack.
And, no. I’m not here for the attractive players—an ar chetype thrown around to discredit women supporters. Neither am I only attending as an appendage of my boy friend—did you not see my membership scarf?
Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy supporting players, who to me are A-grade celebrities, in their element. However, it is in this space where I feel the burden of complying with gender stereotypes unlike anywhere else.
Because no matter how much of a real fan I present myself to be or even am, my presence is liminal amongst the male-dominated crowd. I could scull all the beers, place all the bets, engage in all the banter, and still be the natural outsider and the butt of the joke.
Illustrated by Arielle Vlahiotis
“You’re a f*****g p***sy” echoes across the bay to wards a player on the boundary line. I wince but man age to swallow it for the sake of not being too sensitive or burdensome on what otherwise would be consid ered a good night.
At my first few games, my internalised misogyny dictated that I actively survey myself from the perspective of those around me. Everybody remained glued to the game but when they glanced over in my direction—did they think I was out of place? Sitting in the back row of the bay, I took mental notes on the behaviour of others. A 50-me tre penalty was met with short-lived chaos as arms flew in distress. The more I observed, the more I understood: you have to be an expert on the game who can dish out criticism on demand whilst sinking a Great Northern. But now I’m experienced enough to do this subcon sciously. I know my role and I play it well. I could tell you how many disposals Tom Stewart racked in whilst simultaneously showing you my Sportsbet bet ting slip. Yeah, I did win that five-leg Grand Final multi. But first, to appease you, let me pull my socks over my exposed ankles which reveal the hair on my legs.
news / content warning: misogyny 18
Am I sacrificing myself to feel as if I’m a part of this ques tionable community?
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Dear Diary, Well, well, well. I am so excited for the continuation of this diary and am so appreciative of my predecessor handing over all his notes to me. He really did not like me, and he really rated his chances of re-election quite highly. Now I know he believes in miracles, but I for one do not. I believe that the Australian public wanted a change, and that’s why they voted for me, the blue collar PM. Now what is a blue collar PM you might ask? Honestly, I do not really know. Besides the phrase being a stupendous oxymoron, I guess it can be linked to my upbringing. Which in reality was blue collar—I might be on close to $550,000 now, which may serve to cancel out my blue collar status, but that’s neither here nor there. The election was honestly the gift that kept on giving. Not only did we win and manage to form our own majority government, but the Liberals decided that their next leader would be Peter Dutton. I feel like I am just about ready to call the 2026 election because as far as I am concerned, we’re looking good for a second term. Although I do have one fear, and that is for the general public. Upon Peter coming out and claiming he wanted to show his “complete character”, I shuddered. But of course, all he has done since then is try and trigger alarmists about the resurgence of people smugglers and blame us for the energy crisis, which has really been looming for years but I guess we get the blame for their long term failures. Seems fair… I was pretty excited for my first trip though. I got on a plane straight after the big win and flew out to a big Quad meeting in Tokyo. I got to meet with Prime Minister Kishida of Japan, Prime Minister Modi of India and most excitingly, President Joe Biden. Rumour has it he was pretty impressed by me even being there, and when he remembered my name I knew I was on fire! Luckily, he did not call me the bloke from down under, or begin to doze off when I spoke, the two things I feared most were going to happen. I’ll tell you something for free though, that last bloke we had in really annoyed a lot of other leaders. I’m going to have to fix things up with Macron, the entire Pacific Islands and I’ll probably have to buddy up with President Widodo to name a few. Oh, and China, don’t even get me started! Penny Wong has got her work cut out for her, at least we don’t have to worry about a savvy opposition for the time being. However, for now, I do still like to revel in victory and success. The removalists have just left Kirribilli house and it’s moving day. Hopefully the joint doesn’t stink of Scotty’s famous Untilrecipes.next time, PM Diary: PM’s Retrospective Journal
Dear
/ column / satire Illustrated
The
Written by Jack McMahon by Pamela Piechowicz
Speaking at TEDxCronulla, the Liberal Party leader-turned-backbencher outlined how he has pivoted his career towards spruiking an anti-government agenda, whilst remaining a member of the Australian
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The seven-minute speech, which also included a musical interlude of Christian hymns with guitar and vocals by the man himself (God), and the sharing of holy communion, captured the 250-strong audience who attended the church service TED talk at Saint Scott’s church on Sunday. He concluded by reinforcing the importance of mistrust in the government, “I should know, I was the government. And you wouldn’t trust me would you? Look at me, I’m a middle aged white man with limited credentials trying to tell other people how to live their lives… God and Jesus on the other hand, those are the guys you should be putting your trust in.” Genevieve Byrne
Food Blogger Makes Salad Using ACNE Studio Scarves, Because It’s Still Some how Cheaper Than Lettuce
Since everyone and their mum seems to have snagged a spot on the album for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, it comes as no surprise that the latest addition is a song by none other than criticallyacclaimed rapper and Fiat owner Louis Theroux.
After over two years of recycled lecture recordings, a UniMelb course coordinator decided it’s time to spice up her content for face-to-face learning. “My son told me my memes aren’t dank enough, but I always get a smile from the nice young girl at the front,” she said.
—Alexia Shaw
Mr Jiggle Jiggle himself goes back to his roots with his rendition of ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’, singing the touching lyrics of “wise man said, 6 ft. 2 in a compact”. Let’s just hope he got paid in money that folds.
“Whenparliament.youexperience
— Madison Barr
— Alexia Shaw Full-TimeLecturer and Facebook Mum Tries to Connect With Students Through Cat Gifs and Minion Memes
an inverse miracle, or what some might call a “lost election”, it would be easy to leave the parliament altogether… But my top tip for inciting distrust in government is to stay involved in politics.”
SATIRE-IN-BRIEF satire / Illustrated by Matilda Lilford
On Monday internet blogger Penny Lu re leased a brand new salad recipe that won’t break the bank. She recommended dousing a variety of ACNE Studio scarves, which retail for $440 each, in a zesty dressing of balsamic, olive oil, and wholegrain mustard. The perfect winter-warmer, wrote Lu, before she choked to death on a clump of fuchsia mohair.
— Alexia Shaw Scomo Gives TED Talk on the PM-to-Cult-Leader Pipeline
Twitter Realises That Elon Musk Is Actually That One Flaky Friend We All Have In leaked text message screenshots between the two tech giants, Twitter can be seen asking Musk “where r u?? I’ve got our contracts”, with Musk responding “ohmygod so sorry bestie I couldn’t make it today!! Hope you’re not already on your way xx”. Twitter then sent several texts to Musk over the next two weeks, but were unsurprisingly left on read.
Louis Theroux Spits Mad Bars in Latest Elvis Soundtrack Drop
— Genevieve Byrne
NRL Players Sign a Petition for All Future Sponsorships to Come Exclusively From Betting Companies
UniMelb Graduate, Now Relationship Coach, on How to Find Love in Uni Interview Transcript: “I mean, it really depends on what type of relationship you’re looking for. If you’re the type of girl/guy/gay that’s into a late-arvo reading sesh on South Lawn (where you can’t see shit because the sun sets at 5), then you’ll probably have the best chance bumping into someone at a Fitzroy thrift shop. Best tip for you is to stroll through absolutely every single thrift shop with a bouquet of sunflowers for the aesthetics and wearing some “Naarm-core” New Balance 452s. “If you fantasise about a relationship where you hold your partner’s hand while confidently taking down a 3.2 million modern brutalist house in an eastern suburb property auction, make sure you only hang around with commerce people from now on. No more Baillieu. No more Castro’s Kiosk. Strictly GIBLIN. Make sure you make the STOCKS app your ONLY shortcut on your iPhone, oh no, SAMSUNG. Yep, that’s how we do it. Because we are smarter, techy-ier and BETTER. “If you’re thinking about shooting your shot at an International student… now quit that Macca’s run that you used to do with your high school sweetheart. Follow an ‘Explore Melbourne with Me’ page on TikTok, and go to EVERY restaurant mentioned. No luck? Do a rotation and go through the list again. Remember to study the bubble tea menu and develop a personality analysis for each ‘extra topping’. This will find you an “extra sugar, no pearls” international, for sure…” Danqing Zhu
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The petition, which has 2000 signatures so far, also calls for greater representation of betting ads on NRL jerseys.
— Genevieve Byrne
“We know that we’re role models in the community and we want to make sure we’re pushing the right message… and that message is that betting is cool.”
“I am French, food is the centre of my universe.”
Some have even called for a greater diversity of gambling ads.
Etienne Klein posted a photo of a piece of chorizo sausage to Twitter, purporting it to be a James Webb telescope view of the sun.
French Scientist Confused Between Gastronomy and Astronomy
/ satire Illustrated by Matilda Lilford
“We really want to see all types of gambling represented because we’re all about inclusion.”
art / Artwork by Taya Lilly22
NONFICTION Read more weekly pieces at farragomagazine.com/nonfiction Artwork by Amber Jepsen / art 23
Nothing sparks controversy, discomfort, and anxiety quite like women’s1 reproductive health. From the early days of the oral contraceptive pill in the 1960s, to abortion rights in 2022, Western civilisation seems endlessly fixated on how women should be regulating their bodies. In recent years, much of this discourse has centred upon hormonal birth control in particular—the readiness with which it is prescribed, its adverse side effects, and how it actually functions in the body. But rather than coming from a place of patriarchal control (as many debates over women’s health do) these conversations seem instead to be coming from a place of women’s collective distrust for ruling medical practices. At the beginning of 2021, I realised that the Almighty Pill was not a good fit for me and decided to explore my other options. Little did I know, books, podcasts, and studies into hormonal contraception had really hit the mainstream, most of which challenged the status quo around female physiology and patriarchal standards of medicine. To a certain extent, I found this abundance of information to be empowering. But to another, more troubling extent, I grew increasingly disturbed by the mere prospect of meddling with my hormones. Before I knew 1 The following piece interrogates oral contraceptives designed for people who menstruate. Although much of the language used refers to ‘women’, it must be acknowledged that non binary and non-femme identifying people are equally impacted by this issue. Birth control is a complicated, nuanced topic that affects different people in different ways. Please keep this in mind while reading.
What if it could be a little bit of both?
it, I was stuck in an anxious space between wanting to take hormonal contraceptives and, simultaneously, feeling deeply afraid—even guilty—about doing so. Of course, none of these modern resources are intended to provoke fear. Rather, they serve to counter the dark and troubled history surrounding hormonal birth control, including issues of eugenics, medical negligence, malpractice, and misinformed consent. They thrive on the correct assumption that knowledge is power; especially for women, who have for so long been deprived of knowledge of and power over our bodies. But the more research I did, the more my thinking fell prey to one discomforting binary: either the pill is an evil patriarchal concoction that’s completely rewiring who I am as a person; or the pill is a uniquely radical measure toward my bodily autonomy as a woman.
Let’s take a closer look at the good, the bad, and the potentially not-so-ugly parts of hormonal contraception. Only then can we truly reach some sort of middle ground in this unsettling binary of Good Pill versus Evil Pill.
Why Are We Scared of the Pill?
Written by Sophie Breeze, Staff Writer Illustrated by Ivan Jeldres
content warning: discussions of eugenics, racism, misogyny, and ableismnon-fiction / 24
And by the way, why should the burden of these hormone-altering drugs be placed wholly on people who menstruate, when so many of us suffer from its adverse side effects? It seems only fair that we figure out a corresponding contraceptive option for people who don’t menstruate. (In fairness, scientists are actually working on this. It’s still a study in progress, but the progress is not insubstantial.)
Middle ground
The pill’s initial distribution in 1961 symbolised far more than hormonal intervention. Rather, it symbolised, and continues to symbolise, bodily autonomy. As basic as it sounds, a woman’s right to not get pregnant was a novelty in the mid-twentieth century, with contraception predicated upon a man’s decision to use (or not to use) condoms. Up until this point, marriage and sex were expected to go hand-in-hand. Unsurprising, really, with the risk of pregnancy constantly hanging overhead, meaning any child born out of wedlock might have to rely on the mother’s unequal wages. Wage equality between men and women still hadn’t been formalised in the US, or in Australia, which made it difficult for women to raise children without the security of their husband’s paycheck. For women, pregnancy was a lifelong commitment—not just to their child, but to their partner. Because of this, they tended to be a lot more cautious in their choice and quantity of sexual partners, lest they be condemned to the financial burden and social stigma of single motherhood. Even as a married woman, you’d have to put your entire life on hold to raise a child— your studies, career, or other personal aspirations— whether or not you felt ready to sacrifice those things.
The contemporary discourse around hormonal birth control, overwhelming though it may be, comes from a place of healing, because a lot of the attached history still feels like a big open wound. That said, embracing that healing and acknowledging the pill’s problematic legacy doesn’t have to be an exercise in paranoia. Instead, it can be an incentive to learn and understand all the available options for people with periods. And not just an individual incentive, but a greater medical incentive: doctors have a responsibility to make their patients feel aware, informed, and secure in their birth control decisions. More than that, when complaints are raised, doctors have a responsibility to listen. Hormonal contraceptives are not the problem, but rather, the patriarchal standards of medicine from which they are prescribed—founded upon sexist notions that people with periods are overly sensitive, if not outright hysterical. And then, of course, there are the eugenicist standards from which women’s contraceptive medicine derives, which continue to favour white, ablebodied women (see: PMC7559206) over everyone else.
Fuck that. I refuse to be ashamed of my reproductive health. I refuse to be comfortable with my discomfort. Hormonal birth control is not inherently good or evil, nor is it a one-size-fits-all, especially when we account for the vast spectrum of race, ability, sexuality, and gender identity. It’s a decision—one that we all have the right to make, to unmake, and to understand.
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On that note, abortion rights in Australia were sparse or otherwise overruled by the Offences Against the Person Act (1861) until the early twenty-first century.
Today, that legacy manifests in several everyday experiences for people with periods. Firstly, there’s a lot of misinformed consent: young people with periods are generally put on the pill as the very first course of action for any menstrual-related concerns, and there’s minimal (if any) discussion about what the pill actually is, let alone what the other options might be. Secondly, there’s a lot of negligence: women and people with periods are regularly dismissed by medical practitioners when they complain about their menstrual issues, and the various side effects of hormonal birth control are often overlooked. Finally, there is not enough coverage for women’s reproductive health under Medicare—particularly for hormonal contraceptives that are not subsidised under the PBS (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) and for people who suffer from chronic conditions like PCOS and endometriosis.
It should come as no surprise that the contraceptive pill played a huge part in second-wave feminism and continues to function as a feminist tool today. Not only do women have the power to avoid unwanted pregnancies, but, with modern-day adjustments to the pill’s prescription, we have the power to stop menstruating altogether.
Good Pill
Evil Pill
But the pill did not begin with these modern feminist intentions in mind. Margaret Sanger, one of the pill’s earliest and noisiest advocates, was especially renowned for her eugenicist leanings. She relied heavily on the eugenics movement in the US during the 1920s–1930s to bolster her case for hormonal contraception, claiming the pill would help curb “weak” populations. Or, more specifically, marginalised populations—preventing lowerclass women, disabled women, and women of colour from having children. It seems unsurprising, then, that the first medical trials for the pill were conducted on 200 at-risk Puerto Rican women in 1956. None of the women had given their informed consent. In fact, they were never even told what the pill was for. Three of these women died before the trial’s end, but, deprived of the right to a complete autopsy, their deaths were never officially linked to the pill’s administration.
Despite these deeply fucked up trials, the FDA approved the pill in 1960. It’s taken a lot of twists and turns since then, with estrogen and progesterone levels dropping substantially to reduce the reported side effects (the most lethal of which being blood clots), but its eugenicist origins remain. And, with those eugenicist origins, an enduring legacy of medical trauma.
Hormonal contraceptives—not just the pill, but the IUD, the implant, the patch, et cetera—offer women an entirely new means of controlling their menstrual cycles. They offer us avenues to alleviate period pain, reduce acne, regulate bleeding patterns, and even prevent certain cancers. The pill is radical in its innovation towards women’s comfort and sexual mobility—no longer tethered by the threat of pregnancy or reliant upon men to alleviate that threat, thereby quashing patriarchal standards of sex. And, more broadly, quashing patriarchal control over women’s bodies.
As I write this, I’m sitting at my grandfather’s desk in Saugus, Massachusetts. Today, I cling closer to my Australian identity than ever. Not only for the lack of fear I feel purely from being in public, or the better-tasting orange juice, but the protection of human rights. Today, Roe v Wade was overturned– an appeal lacking support from the majority of the country 1. To feel as though it’s Us and Them is not an unreasonable reaction. Political polarisation is rife, and it’s scary.*** It’s no secret that as a species, we love binaries: us/them, Left/Right, good/evil, woman/man. And there’s a reason we’ve gravitated towards them throughout history, it’s easier. However, it’s also reductive and extremely dangerous. Nuance is important. The subtleties, the everyday details, that’s what makes us human. That’s what allows us to connect with one another. Whilst in some contexts these binaries are starting to go out of fashion, there’s still a long way to go. Tilly Lawless’s debut novel Nothing But My Body (NBMB) helps in this fight. Lawless is a sex worker from Northern NSW who has become increasingly popular since her creation of #FacesofProstitution in 2015. NBMB tells a story heavily based off her life as a queer woman who grew up in the bush and has an addiction to romantic love. Lawless’s writing is bold, unflinchingly honest, and vulnerable in the purest sense of the word. Although at times she would have benefitted from a better editor, I personally found some of the moments that made me cringe to be among the novel’s bravest. Lawless walks the realistic and familiar line of selfawareness and self-absorption. 1 Hartig, H. (2022, June 13). About six-in-ten Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Pew Research Center.
non-fiction / A Review
One of the most poignant points made by Lawless is the articulation of people’s obsession with trying to understand what is real/unreal in her work, “as if it can be neatly categorised”. “People always ask if I enjoy the sex I have with clients or if I have to fake it, as if the two are mutually exclusive and the interplay between them isn’t more complex. In actuality, it depends. And I’m not sure what people are threatened by more—that I don’t always love it, or that I don’t always hate it.”
What NBMB does so beautifully is it tells us the story of a sex worker’s life, in a way that decentres her profession within her identity. Through recounting her own experiences, Lawless showcases the humanity and agency of a group so often denied these things. She is aware of the precarious financial situation that led her to her line of work and her privilege to make the decision to start doing sex work.
content warning: violence against women, descriptions of sex Illustrated
After delving into the literature and discussion of the sex work debate, it becomes clear that Lawless has hit the nail on the head. Nuance is something we are in dire need of, particularly in conversations about the sex industry. But this problem isn’t new. In her book Being and Being Bought Kajsa Ekis Ekman details the perception and understanding of sex workers through history. Central to the traditional narrative was the sex worker as “defective” or “inferior”. Now, the understanding of the “Split Self” has become the norm. An understanding of sex as separate from the body and the self, a conception which views sex work as the selling of one’s time and skills, not the ‘selling’ of the self. Ekman decries this interpretation, claiming that it depicts sex work as ‘freedom’ because it defends sex workers’ right to choose to work, something that she finds reprehensible due to her belief that sex work is of Tilly Lawless’s Nothing But My Body: the Importance of Nuance in Conversations About Sex Work by Maggie Slater, Staff Writer by Ashlea Banon
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Written
As a result of this rigid (and false) dichotomy, feminists are typically forced into two different camps: those who support the decriminalisation of sex work and those in favour of criminalisation. It’s important when examining these groupings to understand the motivations of either side, as there are often similarities in their goals that are overlooked in the polarised landscape of the debate.
Personally, I believe that if we lived in a utopian society, free of both patriarchal and capitalistic influence, that the sex industry would be a fraction of what it is now. Some studies show that up to 90% of women who are full-service sex workers would prefer to be in a different line of work3. The majority of women who find themselves in sex work are there not by true free choice, but due to economic coercion4
5 López, C. (2020). A wave of people turned to OnlyFans to earn money when they lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Insider.
To contextualize this, during the COVID-19 pandemic, OnlyFans saw a 75 per cent increase in sign-ups5. This phenomenon coincided with the disproportionate job loss experienced by women during the pandemic. You can’t try and tell me that this—or that the overrepresentation of 2 95 per cent of sex workers are female, hence the general discussion around women throughout the article. All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade. (2014, March). Shifting the Burden: APPG on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade. 3 Shannon, G. (2017). The Implementation of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, Part IV – An Interim Review. High Level Working Group. 4 Melbourne Sexual Health Clinic (2011). Sex work & job satisfaction study.
/ non-fiction inherently oppressive. Thus, we see the binary upheld in this conversation yet again: she’s brainless, or empowered. She’s a victim, or a manipulator. She enjoys her work, or she hates it2
7 Women’s Bureau. (2020). Median annual earnings by sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity. U.S. Department of Labor.
8 Ekman, K. E., 2013. Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self. Melbourne : Spinifex .
9 Mofokeng, T. (2019, April 26). Why Sex Work Is Real Work. Teen Vogue.
10 Sydney Opera House. (2022, January 3). Activist Tilly Lawless talks life experiences working in the sex industry | Ideas at the House.
11 Stepman, I. (2019, June 20). Hey, Teen Vogue. On career day, no young girl should say ‘I want to be a prostitute’. USA Today. marginalised groups (namely PoCs and migrants) in the sex industry6, groups who are statistically prone to economic precarity7—is a coincidence. Whilst I do believe that sex work is work, I think it’s naïve to imply that it’s “just like any other job”. It’s an occupation which entails an unparalleled risk of violence, disease, and psychological and bodily harm8. With this said, I feel it’s ingenuous to imply that any reputable organisation or person who is pro-legalisation is denying this fact, as is argued by those on the other side of the fence9. To quote Lawless, the view of sex work as an empowering, lucrative business is “fucking bullshit”10. Viewing sex work as legitimate work and supporting the rights of sex workers is not promotion or glorification of the trade.11 Inside and outside of the pages of NBMB, Lawless acknowledges the precarity inherent to her work, thus creating a ‘juxtaposition’ of agency and precarity, proving that the two are not mutually exclusive—an extremely condescending belief held by feminists such as Ekman, which views sex workers as victims, unaware of the power structures which have informed their lifestyle decisions and as in need of ‘consciousness-raising’ and saving. Additionally, Illustrated by Ashlea Banon 27
6 Fitzgerald, E., Patterson, S. E., & Hickey, D. (2015). Meaningful Work: Transgender Experiences in the Sex Trade. Red Umbrella Project, Best Practice Policy Project, and National Center for Transgender Equality. Renshaw, L., Jules, K., Fawkes, J., & Elena, J. (2015). Migrant Sex Workers In Australia. Australian Institute of Criminology.
In times like these, when we’re drugged and tied down within our echo chambers, unable to escape manipulation by algorithms and political parties, many of us allow the cognitive dissonance to take over and give into the stockholm syndrome. The oversaturation of media and news (not to mention trying to decipher its validity) is overwhelming and exhausting. So, it’s easier to mindlessly listen to those we’ve trusted before. But while it’s understandable and something we’re all guilty of doing, it undoubtedly perpetuates polarisation. NBMB functions as a potential example of how we can prevent this issue from worsening: a solution in the details (of people’s lives). When nuance is stripped, people’s stories are silenced. If our aim is to help people, we need to humanise them, to understand their stories in their own words, because this is the only language in which one’s truth can truly be told. It’s only then that we can cross party lines and step into the middle ground that we’ve been blind to for so long, and that is where real change will take place.
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A point often used in advocacy of the Nordic Model is its success at fighting sex trafficking15. Whilst this feat is true, it does not mean that the Nordic Model is the best solution to solving issues surrounding sex work. Human trafficking is a human rights issue prevalent in a variety of sectors outside of the sex industry, such as domestic labour and agriculture. However, the solution to trafficking in these industries is not to attempt to eradicate demand. To try and prevent sex-trafficking by criminalising sex work is not a solution to the problem, it’s a misguided quick fix and can, evidently, be extremely dangerous for sex workers. Conflating the two also promotes the misconception that all sex workers are victims 12 Global Network of Sex Work Projects. (2017). Challenging the introduction of the Nordic Model. Global Network of Sex Work Projects. 13 HouseIbid. of Commons (2016). Prostitution: Third Report of Session 2016–17. Home Affairs Committee.
Illustrated by Ashlea Banon what the anti-decriminalisation camp has terribly wrong is that, similarly to abortion bans, the criminalisation of sex work doesn’t ban sex work, it bans safe sex work. This can be seen through the examination of a key model for criminalisation, the Nordic Model.
The Nordic Model is the go-to example for sex work criminalisation. It views “all sex work as violence”12 due to the belief that sex workers are incapable of choosing sex work willingly. It criminalises the buyers of sexual services, not those selling them. This attempt to protect sex workers from legal punishment implies a care for sex workers. However, under this model a whole host of issues impact sex workers: increased police violence, eviction, removal of children and ‘outing’, decreased (if not completely denied) access to health and community services, and information on safety and harm reduction13. Understandably, this model is not supported by sex workers14. How can it be justified to continue advocating for a solution deemed inadequate by those it claims to be trying to help? It leads me to believe that the Nordic Model’s issue is with the concept of sex work itself, rather than the harm it inflicts on sex workers.
14 Global Network of Sex Work Projects. Challenging the introduction of the Nordic Model 15 House of Commons (2016). Prostitution: Third Report of Session 2016–17 of sex trafficking. Thus, just like our conversations about sex work, our solutions also lack the necessary nuance.
It’s true that the gore and psychological thrill draws horror junkies to the terror of Midsommar. However, the manner in which we ourselves are indoctrinated into the Hårga’s organised madness, along with our protagonist, echoes Aster’s profound understanding of the primal madness of human psychology.
“Welcome home” is the greeting Dani receives as opposed to the half-hearted “Welcome” bestowed upon the rest of their Thegroup.eagle-eyed viewer realises that the Hårga are subtle in their indoctrination of Dani and the film’s audience. They, like the Warren Jeffs and Jim Joneses of the world, provide an attractive solution to the problematic circumstances plaguing their victim; and, in the wake of that solution, all sense of morality dissolves into a blurry mess.
All is dark, dreary, musty and off kilter. Imagine her relief when the idyllic, shroom-filled meadows carry the white-clad Hårga’s warm welcome; the camaraderie she feels when the Hårga join her in wailing her grief and frustration into the ether; how important and valued she must feel when she is crowned May Queen and lauded around by the community.
Let’s take stock of Dani’s state of mind before their wonderful trip plunges straight down to the bottom of a very tall cliff. She is in a highly vulnerable, unstable, ongoing state of mental decline; her farce of a relationship is becoming much harder to deny; the people she surrounds herself with (with the exception of Pelle) show no consideration for her wellbeing; and she is left a drifting orphan, having had her family and sense of community ripped away in the span of one night.
For Dani, it’s the opportunity to gain control over the shambles of her life. As she is crowned May Queen, the Hårga hand her a choice: to sacrifice an elderly member of their community, or a drugged Christian who Dani has been tricked into believing has cheated on her; in other words, an opportunity for vengeance over his neglect (which is, of course, exaggerated by the Hårga’s cunning). In choosing to sacrifice Christian, Dani gains an illusion of control over her life, and feels justified in doing so. We, the audience who sympathise with Dani rather than Christian, shed our morals for a brief moment to smile maniacally with Dani as she watches Christian burn. It is only later, once the end credits have rolled, that we shake ourselves out of our stupor and realise, “Well, that was fucked up.”
The Hårga certainly held the upper hand over Dani, recognising her vulnerability as the ideal method to force her to enact revenge on Christian and her colleagues, instilling the idea of travelling to Sweden in the first place through Pelle, and making Dani believe that she held the proverbial reins all along.
The rules of morality are subverted, and madness and chaos become the new morality in the subjective experience of the victim. One must wonder how the magnitude of brain power used for the purpose of indoctrination, power and greed may have otherwise been utilised had its bearer been deficit of those vices.
“Does (This) Feel Like Home to You?”; But Puppets Have No Say
content warning: death, mentions of murder and suicide, strong language / column / non-fiction 29
Written by Donna Ferdinando Illustrated by Niamh Corbett
The Facets of Madness:
Aster describes the fruit of his own twisted mind as a film about a breakup, though the overarching presence of bears, sadistic incels and morbid rituals results in an entanglement of horror. At the centre of this shroom-induced fever dream lies a cult in all its cultish glory. The oddly triangular buildings, the maypole dances, and the seemingly innocent communal gatherings belie the undercurrent of musty darkness permeating the Hårga’s practices. We can only share in our hapless protagonist’s horror as (surprise! surprise!) ritual suicide is added to their repertoire.
Whether or not Ari Aster was hovering among stormy clouds while creating Midsommar, the general consensus seems to be that this tale is a modern, dark fairy tale, putting the morbid motifs and symbols of the Brothers Grimm to shame.
There is a level of organised madness to the Hårga’s proceedings, observable in the very real cults present in every nook of the world. Those well-versed in the Netflix docuseries Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey can spy some elements of the Hårga’s manipulation in Warren Jeffs’ polygamist FLDS cult. True crime buffs can hardly encounter the word “cult” without also recalling the Jonestown massacre, wherein an entire community was lost at the whims of one powerhungry individual. For isn’t power the driving motivation for maddened stratagems designed to brainwash, break down and remould an individual to one’s liking?
From the mind that created a minimalist adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and raised the bar for creepy kids in Hereditary, Midsommar narrates the story of Dani and her inevitable breakup from her #alphamale boyfriend, Christian. After losing her entire family in a triple murdersuicide, Dani joins Christian and his friends on a trip to the Swedish countryside where they are to live and witness the practices of the Hårga community. She is invited by Pelle, one of the members of the Hårga and Christian’s colleague, who empathises with her trauma and loss. This trip, Dani hopes, will be an opportunity to acknowledge her grief, reconnect with her god-awful boyfriend and perhaps have a good time along the way.
When I’m someone else, I think of my normal self. I think of his resistance, his fear, his masks. When I’m dancing, there is no time or space for that rigidity. I walk up to new people to say hello. I move to sounds I don’t recognise. I offer my lighter to strangers. It is easy to be kissed by someone in the darkness. It is easy when I’m him, when he is dancing. We are all waves in the same ocean. It only makes sense that we crash into each other and melt into one. A nightclub is the only place people are happily homogenised. There’s something undeniably fun about dancing. The glee and the grinning. There’s something sexy about it, too. Not the darkness, not the sweat, not the intoxication or the clouds of smoke or the lipstick stains. I think it all has to do with the dancing. You make yourself vulnerable when you let yourself move without thought. You’re opening yourself up to something you can’t quite put a name to. You don’t know the name, but you greet it with tenderness nonetheless.
Fizzle & Pop Written by Noa Shenker non-fiction / 30
When I’m dancing, I like to pretend I’m someone else. I like to imagine that I’m somewhere exotic, tropical, romantic. I like to think I’m more than what I really am, which is oftentimes just uncomfortable. Because I don’t really view myself as someone who likes to dance, or who dances, but my wavering youth and obtrusive mortality continuously drag me to dark rooms cut up by neon lights, because it’s something I feel like I must do before the youth has run out completely and the mortality is more than a distant bogeyman but a coat I wear around my shoulders. I like to imagine that dirty dance floors in dingy nightclubs are more than just breeding grounds for casual sex, but a substratum for exploration and movement, discovery, and euphoria. The sex is not lost on me, though; I find it enlightening, rather than coincidental, that there is a strong tether binding male dancing and fighting ability—both are performances landing on opposite ends of the gender-expression spectrum. Neither are for me. When I am dancing, I like to imagine the steady beats of a rhythm snaking over my limbs like vines, holding me in place and then moving me in time to the music. I picture the bilious clouds of vape exhalation like halos above their users. I shut my eyes and imagine myself smiling in the darkness, the smirk illuminated sporadically and spectacularly by phone flashlights, and then I smile for real at the image. But in all those fantasies I don’t know if the person experiencing all of that is me or the person I’m pretending to be. It’s as if dancing is incongruous with the rest of my character. Dancing, ostensibly, orients itself around confidence and lends itself easily to charm. You must know who you are to know how to move. I don’t know if I know myself like that. So, before I go out, I drink to excess. I dress up. I dress down. I order sacrilegiously expensive Ubers to Windsor or Richmond or Fitzroy. I finish cheap bottles of wine with my friends. I play music from 2012 because it makes me think I’m a kid again and I get to feel a slight draught of the carelessness that has slowly been stolen from me by the soft glow of birthday candles. I do whatever I can to slow the tide of fear that accompanies the oncoming movement. I don’t want to find myself feeling out of place. I also don’t want to be weighed down by fear or regret. I’m always somehow drawn to the light-up floors; half of me feels trapped between the colours, but the other half revels in the unmitigated joy. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing could scare me. Because whilst all of me fears true adulthood, and most of me tries staggeringly every day to ignore that fear, a small part of me is keenly aware (and afraid) of what adulthood truly means; I think, scarily, that it simply means loss. Losing liberties. Losing time. Losing patience. Even losing things I’m not particularly fond of, like dancing in nightclubs. So, I go now, and I try my best. And sometimes trying my best requires submerging myself into darkness. Sometimes it means I have to betray everything I’ve ever been taught about being myself and choose to turn a cold shoulder to him, and choose another version of myself instead for the night. It makes me feel good. I don’t think I feel bad about it. Hedonism is acceptable in small doses. When I dance, I close my eyes and acclimatise to the music. If my eyes are open, I feel my body too consciously, like a wet t-shirt clinging uncomfortably to my flesh. With my eyes closed, my body doesn’t exist anymore—I’m released from its confines, and I become one with the legato of steady techno beats and the flow of lucid bodies around me. With my eyelids heavy like rainclouds and drooping shut, I’m no longer bound to my own preconceptions of beauty, grace, or movement. Because I’m no longer myself. As a bath bomb dropped in a tub, I fizzle and pop until I fully dissolve into the waters around me, becoming one with the sound and the people and the stickiness underfoot. It all wraps me up like a warm blanket (FYI, I am not on drugs) (No hard drugs, anyway) (What do you care even if I am? But I’m not).
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I don’t know the name, but I try greeting it with that tenderness. I try, but it is often his embrace—that person I pretend to be when I’m dancing—that welcomes the feeling. I envy his delight; I miss it when I am just me. I allow myself to think that it’s all worth it. That closing my eyes and being someone else is worth the thrill of my limbs forgetting themselves in the name of disco or pop or trance. That when the youth has been bled dry, it has been sapped by joy and not just time. But that’s all very idealistic of me, isn’t it? At the end of the night, the lights turn on and sweep amongst a wreck of sweaty bodies, emptied wallets, and fractured hearts. The lights turn on, and we open our eyes, and suddenly we exist again. I exist again, as myself. And whilst I’m a little worse for wear and a little anxious I said something I shouldn’t have whilst inebriated, I had fun. I got to be someone else for that little while, but the memories are still mine. A thin sheen of that feeling —that indiscernible, unnameable sensation—it lingers, if only for a few moments, before melting and sliding off my perspired skin. I realise now, though, that I have never been dancing to make myself into somebody new. I’ve never actually been anyone else. Because when I’m tapping into that person who dances—that transportive experience only accessible with my eyes shut feet moving chest thumping body bouncing heart racing hands shaking hands touching hands holding eyes locking lips meeting – well, then, really, I’m just being me. by Evan Goulios
/ non-fiction Illustrated
Written by Bella Farrelly, Staff Writer
Finger guns pointed at the camera, cool-guy aviators on, Johnny Depp’s smirking face sandwiched between Impact font reading: “JOHNNY DEPP / THE FIRST MAN TO EVER WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH A WOMAN!”
sexual harassment, anti-Semitism,
mass violence
A dissertation by Caitlin Brown from the University of Michigan offers the term “meta-disparagement humour”, described as “jokes that explicitly target a minority while implicitly ridiculing those who would laugh at the joke at face value”. But subscribers of this kind of humour run the risk of becoming earnest actors in perpetuating the ideologies it parodies. Meta-disparagement humour became a fixed feature in comedy following Obama’s inauguration in the states, within a month of which “perceptions of racial discrimination decreased by ten per cent”. An episode of 30 Rock illustrates its line of thought when black character Tracy Jordan claims that Obama “brought old school racism back”, prompting another to clarify, “So you’re saying racism is back because white people no longer feel sorry for us?”
The Depp v. Heard trial was excessively celebrated online for the public recognition that, in contrast to patriarchal ideas of men being impervious to emotion and women being helpless victims, men can be abused, and women abusers. Indeed, that sounds like a long stride toward dismantling the patriarchy, but it also ushered in the return of 2012-variety misogynistic memes in force.
I don’t know about you, but my darkest moments— what haunts me when I lay shivering in the clutches of regret and cringe at night—are most often born from misinterpretation in social situations. Worst of all is misinterpreting humour: laughing when you aren’t supposed to, or, God forbid, not laughing when you should be, instead taking an obvious joke at face value. Shameful. Almost unspeakable. It bears an embarrassing misunderstanding of social cues for all to see, point and laugh at, and… okay, maybe it’s not always that serious. But at the moment, misunderstanding humour really does make you feel “other”. That’s what makes ironic humour— shrouded in layers of necessary outside knowledge, implicit commentary, and its fusion of mockery and sincerity—such a powerful shield against criticism. The threat of social punishment that rings with the words “dude, it’s just satire…” often sends people scurrying off to wallow in shame before they can even think to question the validity of that statement as a defence.
A few layers past plain irony, however, is post-irony, where earnest and ironic intents become worryingly inextricable.
culture / Illustrated
A doctored screenshot of a tweet by OnlyFans itself, accompanied by a suggestive picture of Amber Heard, @’ing her to tell her “It’s time” (for her to make an account).
Remember what scrolling through social media was like at the height of the case?
Today’s social media landscape, teeming with liberal identity discourse and progressive movements for feminism like #MeToo, seems to have had similar effects regarding misogyny.
I saw household names in YouTube commentary dismiss Depp’s text messages about “fucking Amber Heard’s burnt corpse” as mere “edgy jokes”—normal and harmless jokes, even, its context of a trial surrounding domestic abuse notwithstanding. by Pamela Piechowicz racism, misogyny, Islamophobia,
content warning: mentions of
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Being In On It
discussion of
Sarcasm! Saying the opposite of what you mean for comedic effect. The most basic form of irony that we know and boomers, especially, love. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you’re an expert on my life and how to live it,” jeers a Minion™ in a classic Facebook meme, deep fried and crispy at the edges from fifteen different Instagram filters having been applied to it over the years. “Please continue while I take notes.” But the minion’s wry smile, raised eyebrow and expectant hands-on-hips suggests it might not actually be sincere.
But they’re not harmless, are they?
Being in on something—be it a particular brand of edgy “satire” or, for example, the anti-corporation spirit of the “subscribe to Pewdiepie” slogan (as the Christchurch shooter, who uttered the phrase before firing, was)—has become a way of signalling that you’re internet-savvy, that you’re not just a passive consumer of an “overly sensitive” internet, and that ultimately, you’re smarter than the naïve public. Ironic shock humour flatters its users into the continued touting of dog whistles signalling membership in the inside club.
You don’t have to take Khan’s word for it, though—take it from an online extremist themselves. When asked the best way of spreading their ideology, the anonymous owner of E;R, an antisemitic YouTube channel, responded: “pretend to joke about it until the punchline really lands.”
/ culture
Illustrated by Pamela Piechowicz
Again, jokes that toe the line of bigotry provide cover for earnest proponents of it since they could then “plausibly” deny their bigotry. Farrah Khan, director of Consent Comes First at Toronto Metropolitan University, said of the case and its reception online: “jokes become ideas… the idea that you can demean, police, persecute and punish people. Then it becomes harassment, threats, and verbal abuse. Then it can also if people think that’s okay… lead to other things like sexual assault, physical violence and murder.”
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One thinks of Pewdiepie’s infamous flirtation with the alt-right and his slew of scandals circa 2016–2019—most notable was his having spent money for people to hold up anti-Semitic signs—and how it came to a head with the 2019 Christchurch shooter pledging allegiance to him before killing 51 at two mosques. Obviously, the shooting wasn’t Pewdiepie’s fault. But this was a visible causeand-effect of “ironic” shock humour attracting genuine proponents of the bigotry that Pewdiepie apparently sought out only to satirise.
If that sounds a lot like alt-right “red-pilling”—their term for radicalisation—that’s because it’s the same thing. Both blossomed foremost as an ironic mocking of the social media spectacle, and then the mocking of the “earnestness and moral self-flattery” (as Angela Nagle— author of Kill All Normies—calls it) of Tumblr-brand teenaged activists, militant and drunk with the power that an increasingly liberal internet culture has given them of “cancelling” people.
As our collective capacity for sincerity has been further dulled by “doomscrolling”, it’s increasingly easy to view ourselves as helpless spectators to a world gone mad. As a result, lazy cynicism has become the mark of an educated, enlightened, “truth-seeing” worldview. Displays of strong conviction and sincere belief seemingly bare a vulnerability to emotional rhetoric, an inability to think critically, and a susceptibility to being… perish the thought… cringe But this writer thinks a return to sincerity is the only way out of the dangerous comedic landscape we’ve created for Nagleourselves.saidofthe best treatment for irony-wielding online extremists: “journalists should be saying, ‘I don’t want to talk about Pepe memes and hand signs.’ We should force them to talk about what they really stand for.” Reader, dare to back away from the insecure, selfwatching, measured distance of ironic cringe culture. Dare to see yourself not as a spectator but a participant in our culture; to entertain single-entendre principles; to resist cynicism’s false promise of intellectual superiority.
After all, the common diagnosis his defensive fans offer is that Pewdiepie’s “edgy” persona was totally unserious, “meta”, even. The real joke was simply on anyone who hadn’t figured out the supposedly high-concept irony of it all—anyone who wasn’t “in on it”.
Meanwhile, poor Jane Seymour (Loren Hunter) croons a heartfelt Adele-like ballad aptly titled ‘Heart of Stone’.
A
Each of the queens is portrayed through the iconic hallmarks of our own twenty-first-century pop divas, felt most palpably through their solo tracks. Six’s take on Catherine of Aragon (Phoenix Jackson Mendoza) injects powerful R&B stylings, while Anne Boleyn (Kala Gare) adopts Lily Allen’s unapologetic cheekiness in the retelling of her story; a catalyst that led to her beheading.
Anne of Cleves (Kiana Daniele) borrows ostensible inspiration from Rihanna, delivering some next-level amounts of sass and attitude to the group’s dynamic.
Written by Larissa Brand
Six, possibly one of the most important musicals of our generation, has finally arrived in Melbourne, after originally being set to reign over the Comedy Theatre’s stage two years ago, before delays due to COVID-19. This particular musical is especially inspiring for students, as its ideation all began in the classrooms of Cambridge University. Six is the brainchild of students Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, who created the glitzy pop musical across 10 non-consecutive days in the hopes of providing a platform for the musical talents of their female friends and rewriting how women are being portrayed in theatre.
Lastly (but certainly not least), queen Catherine Parr (Shannen Alyce Quan and Vidya Makan from the original Australian cast), who is known as the sole surviving wife of the tyrannical king, questions the nature of this rivalry by comparing the “abuse and trauma” they have all faced. With the soulful depth of Alicia Keys’ vocal techniques and lyricism, she helps the other queens realise their agency in reinventing their histories to encapsulate their identities beyond what their ex-husband made them out to be, spinning the narrative that King Henry’s six wives were the driving forces behind his fame. Before attending, all assumptions of what a musical should be—must be—brushed aside. Its defiance of classic theatre tropes may be why Six, which toes the line of being a rock concert, is not for everyone. Like Come from Away, which graced the Comedy Theatre’s stage three years prior, this modern musical strays away from the typical use of stage elements and demonstrates how minimalism could be musical theatre’s reimagined future. The stage may be bare, but for the “ladies in waiting”, the quartet of female musicians perfectly align with each queen’s personal styles, from jazzy numbers to rap anthems. However, Six also lacks a cohesive storyline, as each song chronicles the wives’ gruesome, tragic tales in a manner reminiscent of the original Horrible Histories trademark style. The banter between the six ladies, weaved through songs and dialogue, is at times whiny and insensitive. For instance, the queens go as far as comparing the extent of their miscarriages and abuse. Thankfully, all misconceptions are eventually addressed by the third act. Down’ to the Newest ‘HistoRemix’ in Town: Review of Six the Musical
Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived!
Katherine Howard (Chelsea Dawson) produces Ariana Grande’s impressive whistle notes, all while exuding the flirty nature of 2000s pop diva Britney Spears.
fodder blog / ‘Get
Illustrated by Ivan Jeldres
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Six originally premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017 and is now a hit on both Broadway and international stages, having already achieved a cult following and a Tony award for its soundtrack. Six presents a reclaimed ‘HERstory’ of King Henry XIII’s six wives through witty, sassy, and lyrically feminist pop songs that display the power of women when “linked, not ranked”. As one viewer pointed out, “if they had taught history like this at school, I would have done a lot more of it.”
The familiar tragedy of King Henry’s six spouses is retold through a new lens as the six queens compete over who experienced the worst marriage to the notorious Tudor king, each with their own extremely catchy pop ballads imbued with centuries worth of angst and emotion. The soundtrack has already been streamed a hundred million times on Spotify and Apple Music. The incredibly written music score is probably one of the only instances you will get to see the classic Greensleeves being twerked to or have a rave at the famous painter, Hans Holbein’s, own home.
Photography by Akash Anil Nair @thephotostudio
Six includes no traditional scene or lighting changes; strips of LED lights and sixteenth-century ruffs become indicators of settings, which at times give off the visual impression of a Fifth Harmony concert. They leave the iconic rhinestone-clad costumes to fill the gap as the stage’s main visual elements. Each queen is privy to her own signature style, and the costumes are elaborately adorned with fishnet leggings, corsets and of course, crowns. Originally devised by Gabrielle Slade, the costumes are so well-designed that they even foreshadow the queens’ fates—examples being Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard’s symbolic ironic chokers, both women ending up decapitated.
An assumption often made is that Six was inspired by Lin Manuel Miranda’s hit show Hamilton, with both having found their footing as modern reinventions of major historical events. However, the Six cast are quick to point out their position as a feminist movement. With an allfemale, LGBTQ-friendly cast, with queer cast members and Toby Marlow, the writer, originally playing Catherine Parr, this musical aims to break down patriarchal structures observed throughout history. Vidya Makan, who plays Australia’s Catherine Parr, conveys this message of power, and hope for the future of women, meant to be instilled in viewers’ personal lives. Makan even says that the cast dub the audience their seventh queen. This revolutionary musical also intends to defy the culture of the era it depicts. The six Australian queens were directed to keep their own local accents rather than adopting the original British, in order to demonstrate the flexibility of Six’s feminist messages in various contexts.
Its emphasis on inclusivity, similar to Hamilton’s ethnically diverse cast, contributes to the shaping of musical theatre’s future, where music, casting and set design are able to progress further.
Six requires an open-minded approach, as it is essentially taking generous liberties with history, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that it is a fantastic watch. It holds the mirror up to allow reflection on centuries worth of women being painted in a misogynistic light, through its incorporation of the modern into tradition. You may learn a thing or two about the famous ex-wives of King Henry, while receiving valuable lessons in feminism, along with a glimpse into the modernisation of musical theatre. It seems that reclaiming history through catchy tunes is one key to Broadway success—though, let’s hope we don’t end up with a musical retelling of the Black Plague in the future. 35
Illustrated by Indy Smith fodder blog / July and August came and went with a plethora of live music events ranging from large scale international headliners to humbler, local showings. There’s no better way to usher in the spring with a new guide of gig recommendations by Radio Fodder!
Mild Orange When: 14 October Where: Howler Prices: $$ New Zealand-born indie pop groovers Mild Orange are touring Australia for the first time as headlining acts this November, after dropping their third studio album Looking For Space earlier this year. “We’re so stoked to finally be touring Australia—we’ve been trying to get there for years now. We’ve had such epic support from our Aussie mates all along the way and we’re well aware that they know how to boogie,” the band, who describe their style as “melting melodies”, said in a statement. “Can’t wait to show you how us Kiwis groove.”
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Where: The Forum Prices: $$$ Hailing from Brighton, England, Passenger (also known as Mike Rosenberg) had humble beginnings as a busker, transitioning from street corners to sold-out stadiums after his breakout single ‘Let Her Go’ took off in 2013. Now headlining a tour of Australia, Passenger will be taking to the stage at The Forum to perform well-loved folk hits.
Where: Rod Laver Arena Prices: $$$ Tame Impala’s Australian and New Zealand tour has been a long time coming—after facing two postponements due to COVID19-related travel restrictions, the Perth-born psychedelic musician will finally be arriving at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena in support of his hit record The Slow Rush, which saw popular songs such as ‘Lost In Yesterday’ and ‘Borderline’. FODDER’S DECLASSIFIED GIG SURVIVAL GUIDE WRITTEN BY CARMEN CHIN OCTOBER EDITION
Passenger When: 15 October
Maddy Jane When: 1 October Where: Northcote Social Club Prices: $ Maddy Jane will be making a stop in Melbourne as part of her ‘Bloody Finally’ tour of Australia, marking her first national tour dates in two years. Her nationwide trek is in support of her recently released EP Island Time, but will be bringing old fan favourites to the stage. “We’ll be touring everything from the last couple of years,” Jane explained in a press statement. “I come alive [when I perform] live, and I cannot wait to be back out there.”
Our curated selection of live music options include a number of genres there’s bona fide indie pop royalty (and TikTok star) mxmtoon and Tame Impala, nostalgic childhood-defining emo-pop outfit Boys Like Girls to early 2010s pop breakouts like Passenger and George Ezra. Indie favourites Maddy Jane and Mild Orange will also be making stops in Melbourne this month as part of their respective headlining tours of the country. Take a look at some of the most anticipated shows of October, and make sure to leave some free time to support several local gigs we have included here hosted at smaller grassroots venues!
Tame Impala When: 22–23 October
mxmtoon When: 4 October Where: Melbourne Recital Centre Prices: $$$ When mxmtoon, also known as Maia, announced her first-ever run of live shows on Australian and New Zealand soil earlier this year in March, fans were ecstatic. Her first stop in the Southern Hemisphere will be Melbourne, and will feature live performances of songs off her most recent record, Rising Boys Like Girls When: 4–5 October Where: 170 Russell Prices: $$ Boston-based emo-pop turned country-pop band Boys Like Girls, who soundtracked a lot of our childhoods growing up with early 2000s hits like ‘The Great Escape’ and ‘Thunder’, are on tour in Australia for the first time in over a decade. Fans can expect nostalgic performances of cult classic favourites from their eponymous debut album, alongside other hits from their illustrious discography. Wombat When: 7 October Where: 170 Russell Prices: $ Rising Australian grime emcee Wombat will be visiting Melbourne as part of his first run of headline shows in three years. After a slew of setbacks due to the pandemic— cancelled tour plans, postponed releases and lockdowns—the Tasmanian musician will be performing several hits from his catalogue, including ‘Adrenaline’ (featuring Devlin), ‘Kebabs’, ‘Blue Lights’ and more.
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Wavves When: 26 October Where: Corner Hotel Prices: $$ Californian indie punk rockers Wavves are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their third studio album King of the Beach with a headline show at The Corner Hotel in Richmond this October, with all tracks off the album to be performed live by the Nathan Williams-led outfit. Singles including ‘Post Acid’, ‘Super Soaker’ and ‘Idiot’ are to be expected, as they take you back to the early 2010s with their signature trail of teenage destruction.
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IDLES When: 31 October Where: Rod Laver Arena Prices: $$ Fresh off the back of a brand new album and a sold-out tour of the United States, British rockers IDLES mark their first time on Australian soil since their sold-out debut tour in 2019. Their latest record, CRAWLER, was described as an album of reflection and healing amid a worldwide pandemic, with frontman Joe Talbot saying, “We want people who’ve gone through trauma, heartbreak, and loss to feel like they’re not alone. This album shows the ugly side of where those things come from, but also how it is possible to reclaim joy from those experiences.”
George Ezra When: 31 October Where: Sidney Myer Music Bowl Prices: $$ In promotion of the recently released third studio album Gold Rush Kid, the ‘Budapest’ singer is set to return Down Under to deliver the first live renditions of the euphoric 12-track record. With a warm, syrupy voice and feel-good tunes, Ezra’s grand return to music after a long four–year wait could not have arrived sooner.
Chey paused with his phone held up to the screen and scrolled and scrolled though his voice memos, sliding it away before reaching any end. Some of the recordings were short lines, others whole choruses and one a potential six-minute-long ballad he recently wrote with his girlfriend that he is saving for Cheylater. has found his place in Melbourne, applauding it for its comparative progressiveness and thriving arts scene. “Being able to walk around the streets with your fingernails painted, not having to refer to yourself as a he or she, and it’s up to you, who cares, it’s totally up to you—I absolutely adore that.” He hopes to jump on the other side of the stage soon and open for local talent.
It has been almost a year since I met with Chey Jordan to chat about the release of his first single ‘wait 4 u’. Much has changed since then—Melbourne, the Perth native’s new home, finally came out of lockdown. Chey started studying audio production and has moved southside from a studio apartment to a sharehouse from which he is Zooming in. He has grown a moustache. And he has fallen in love.
Chey’s new track ‘alright!’ was completed in a whirlwind two days with friend and producer C.J. Klimak. It was built around a chorus he recorded on his phone during the rough transitionary period that comes after leaving high school, with the original voice memo sampled in the final released track. It’s an energetic number with an upbeat, buoyant chorus, and it was stuck in my head after only two listens. The gritty bridge is a standout; Chey’s vocals shine and give insight into the pain of growing up that the rest of the song attempts to deny with blasé, boppy lyrics. ‘alright!’ will no doubt serve Chey’s desire for his music to have people dancing at his future gigs. Still, it isn’t the love ballad I was expecting, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Chey confessed that: “I find it 100 times easier to write about love because it’s something you are experiencing right now that you can put down on paper.” The real difficulty lies in making those feelings sound not as “cheesy” and “cliché” as romantic comedies. “It doesn’t help,” he concedes, “that I watch a lot of romcoms.” He names the likes of Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Barnett and Julia Jacklin as lyricists that manage to strike a careful balance to bear it all through more nuanced and subtle allusions which paint a bigger picture.
Naturally, I asked whether he had written another 300 for the 300 or so days it had been since then, fully anticipating a laugh followed by something along the lines of “Noooo, I couldn’t keep up that momentum and remain inspired for a whole year.” I got the laugh, but then, to my disbelief, he replied with complete nonchalance, “Oh I’d say it’s up there.”
Perth Indie Royalty Chey Jordan One Year On: He’s Doing ‘alright!’
Last time we spoke, Chey was around 30 days into a solo, winter lockdown and had managed to write a song every day.
As such, I was expecting a different sound from Chey when I got word that new music was on the horizon. Perhaps a trade off the threads of introspective longing that run through his two previous singles for some giddy, rose-tinted professions of love.
Written by Olivia Ryan
Photos courtesy of Chey Jordan
“It’s“300?!”atleast 300 choruses… it’s ridiculous.”
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Our last chat closed with the question of whether music was Chey’s calling, to which he quickly responded a clear no. He told me it was instead a passion that he didn’t have to take too seriously. He told me it didn’t feel like work for him, it was simply “fun”. It’s a charming outlook to have, and something I think listeners can only appreciate as being a prerequisite to authenticity in his work. I finally asked whether music is still fun for him and in a full circle moment he closed the interview with the exact same words he did last time. “I’ll keep doing it until it stops being fun.”
Harry Styles also gets a special mention for the imagerydrenched montages Chey crafts in his writing about previous relationships. “I love when a writer references personal experiences you might not know about, and you can get a glimpse of what it was like.” He joins me in an ongoing quest to defend the former boy band member’s place as one of our modern-day greats. Chey criticised the common prejudice towards songs that rise into the charts for simply for being “mainstream” by industry snobs, saying that “if you are hating on a song just because it’s in the top 100, you need to grow up.”
In Conversation With Newcastle Indie Folk Musician Austin Mackay
Austin’s latest single ‘On The Way Down’ (released July 29) is an exciting addition to his upcoming EP, set to release later in the year. Read the full interview on radiofodder.com and listen to the single on Spotify now.
I: You have released a couple of singles recently, is there potentially something bigger in the works or are you enjoying this wave of releasing singles?
I: I feel like you played in a few unique ways that I at least haven’t seen before, the double capo move and singing into the sound hole. Are there any particular artists’ playing styles that you feel like have influenced your approach?
I: Obviously Commonfolk was a special venue, do you have anywhere else that stands out in your mind? It could be an amazing space, or somewhere that was really special on a personal level.
It’s a different kind of energy, less storytelling but you get that pumped up energy off the crowd because everyone is so ready to dance and have some fun. That contrast particularly is fun, between the different shows you play on a certain tour which is really really special because you never know what to expect.
A: More so from a songwriting perspective, an artist I look up to is James Bay. He has always been that singer/songwriter that can bring a rock/band sound to his recordings and that’s what I am striving to do as well. He can stand in front of a room with an acoustic guitar and hold his own but he can also bring a band into the mix and bring a bigger energy to the show which is what I am aiming to do. It was so nice for me to play over the weekend after Mornington, Melbourne and Ballarat to come back to the Gold Coast and play a full band show at Creekfest. To have that contrast and feel like I can do definitely takes a lot of inspiration from artists like James Bay and John Mayer who have singer songwriter roots and bring a bigger sound into the mix. With the double capo stuff and singing into the guitar, [they] come from other artists I have seen do that especially Ben Howard, not necessarily his songwriting but definitely the things he does to experiment on stage. He definitely thinks outside of the box when it comes to live performance which I think is such a special thing to do not only because it keeps it interesting for the audience but it keeps it interesting for the performer as well. Once you start to tap into things outside the box and dont feel stuck with standard cord shapes on the guitar, you can experiment—which opens up a lot of avenues for performance and new thought processes.
A: To date I have released a couple of singles and one EP, so the plan for the rest of the year is that I have three more singles and an EP. That EP will be toured around the country, we are still pending release and tour dates for those shows but that plan is set in stone. It’s exciting for me and exciting for other people. Over the past year, I have dived back into playing a heap of shows and taking everything as it comes but that hasn’t left much time for me to get into the studio and record/release music. It has been nice over the past couple of months between tours to jump into the studio and start recording these new songs. It’s really exciting to be able to get new material out to people more consistently and it’s going to be such a special thing to me.
Don’t get me wrong I love playing venues as well, but it’s definitely those ones that stick with me. Kyle’s show in Melbourne the night after Commonfolk we played to about 350 people at Northcote Social Club and that one was so fun.
Embraced by fairy lights and that scarlet rug every busker seems to own, Austin Mackay opened the stage for Kyle Lionhart at Commonfolk Coffee Roasters with a warmth, drawing the crowd in close for a glimpse at his magical playing style. Speckled with stories of fleeting love and broken hearts, his show strung together a list of unreleased tracks, twinkling like the fairy lights around the bar. Backing up a run of garden shows, new releases and supporting Kyle, Austin generously lent his time for me to pick his brains. Looking deeper than his most recent single ‘Borderline’, I dug into the nitty gritty of his listening habits for a peek at what inspires his process. Beyond the heartache and time spent on the road, with some wholesome love for other artists and their everlasting commitment to the artform.
Photos courtesy of Austin Mackay
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Written by Isabella Ross
A: The more intimate shows are the ones that really stick with me. I just recently finished a secret garden show tour with my friends Alivan Blu. We played five shows across Queensland and Northern New South Wales; we put a callout on our social media looking for people to host shows in their backyards. We got five people from Sunshine Coast, Warwick, Gold Coast, Byron and Yamba [who] were keen to host us. Basically, we put on these ticketed shows in people’s backyards, set up speakers and lights to put on a really intimate show and those for me are the ones that really stick out. Everyone brought their own rugs and their own drinks and snacks and it gave the same vibe as everyone having their Sunday afternoon drinks on Burleigh Hill.
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I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump recently. After mulling over why I’ve tossed aside so many books, the answer became clear—the character voice wasn’t pulling me in. Attempts to make characters seem cool or competent seemed like showing off and attempts to make characters sympathetic or likeable came off as obvious pity-grabs. Character voice is one of the most important components of a novel, but it can be frequently overlooked. We reside in the characters’ heads for most of the book, so if we don’t like how they sound, there isn’t much incentive to keep reading. How, then, do we as writers create a character’s voice that is interesting and engaging, relatable and likeable?
A W.I.P. Around the Workshop: Character voice, style, and points of view— how slight touches can alter the reading experience
Written by Lamis, Creative Literature & Writing Society (CLAWS)
Points of view and the impact on character voice: When writing a scene, one of the first decisions the writer makes is what point of view to write in. While there are technically four points of view (first, second, third limited, third omniscient), second person tends to remain in choose-your-own-adventure novels and reader-insert fanfiction, and third omniscient has fallen out of favour in recent decades. Therefore the choice tends to be between first person and third limited. First person positions the reader intimately close with the main character. We hear their every worry, doubt, and observation—the entire world of the novel is coloured through their eyes. For example, in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is unfamiliar with West Egg and the extravagant lifestyle there. He narrates, “It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.” This proximity between reader and character encourages the audience to build a strong attachment to the character very quickly. However, this all hinges on whether the character’s voice is agreeable to the reader. If the reader dislikes the main character’s voice, it’s likely they’ll dislike the novel, if it’s written in first person. Character voice is the most essential element to making a first person novel work, and choosing the right voice can make or break your novel. Third person limited has the reader more emotionally distant from the characters. This means readers can take longer to develop an attachment to the characters, but it also means that readers may be less irritated by the character’s voice. For example, in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice , it is narrated that, “ When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him. ‘He is just what a young man ought to be,’ said she, ‘sensible, good-humored, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! So much ease, with such perfect good breeding! ’” This does not mean that character voice is not important in third person limited. Moreover, third-person writers are granted the unique ability to change characters each chapter and can write scenes from the perspective of characters that have only been mentioned briefly. Here, character voice is paramount in ensuring the writing of characters stays consistent across different perspectives. While it may seem that the lack of first-person narration makes the story less immersive, for some, third person is more immersive. The story is not being told to us by someone else, as is in first person—instead, we are an invisible presence experiencing the story alongside the characters.
Style: Character voice and point of view work in tandem to create a certain style in writing. The emotions and observations of the characters, shown to us through the lens of the point of view, create a tone that evokes a certain emotional response from the readers. It develops a richness to the writing that takes it beyond words on a page. Exercises in Style by novelist and poet Raymond Queneau takes a mundane scene—a man getting into an argument with another passenger on a bus—and proceeds to rewrite the scene in 99 different styles. Written in first person, the voice of the narrator changes depending on the style chosen, and so the otherwise uninteresting scene becomes humorous, cynical, or deeply philosophical. For example, the “precision” point of view detachedly narrates the situation like a police report whereas the “metaphorical” point of view humorously likens the man in the bus to being “tossed among the shoal of travelling sardines in a white-bellied beetle”. Practising writing scenes in different styles from your own is a great writing exercise to help expand your writing. In saying that, the following two writing excerpts are my own attempt to play with the aforementioned scene, writing it once with a disdainful narrator and contrasting it to an adoring narrator.
Two hours later, I see him in the Cour de Rome, in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. He’s with a friend who’s saying, “You ought to get an extra button put on your overcoat.” He shows him where (at the lapels) and why. It seems the company he keeps is as badly dressed as he is.
Two hours later, I see him in the Cour de Rome, in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. He’s with a friend who’s saying, “You ought to get an extra button put on your overcoat.” He shows him where (at the lapels) and why. It is such sound advice that my heart swells. How lovely it is to have friends who offer such great counsel! Casey Boswell
The man is about twenty-six years old, wearing a felt hat with a cord instead of a ribbon. The cord is worn and stretched out, as though he’s been tugging on it compulsively since he bought it. Whenever people get off the bus, the limited space means that the passenger beside him pushes against him to make way. The man accuses the passenger of jostling him whenever people walk off. He’s trying to sound aggressive, but there’s a high-pitched whine to his voice that makes it blubbering. It grates on my ears. The instant a seat is free he throws himself into it, entirely mindless of those around him who have been standing for much longer and much more uncomfortably than he has.
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Excerpt: “The adoring style” I’m in the S bus at rush hour, on the commute home when a twenty-six-year-old man speaks up after being unfairly jostled by a passenger to his right. Whenever people alight the bus, the passenger deliberately pushes the man, seeking to aggravate him. Perhaps the passenger is envious of the man’s felt hat, which is stylishly adorned with a cord instead of a ribbon.
The man speaks up with strong emotion—he does not sound aggressive, which would escalate the situation. He speaks from his heart, a rising pitch to his voice betraying his authenticity. In a great show of mercy, he walks away from the altercation and takes an unoccupied seat on the bus, restoring peace once more.
Excerpt: “The disdainful style” I’m in the S bus at rush hour trying to survive the trip home when a man starts to fight with a passenger beside him. I bite back my sigh. Of course it’s rush hour—when else would he choose to pick a fight? Surely not at a quieter time, where he wouldn’t have a captive audience to witness how deeply the world has wronged him.
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‘Lost in Translation’ by Riley Morgangraphic column / 42
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Filling Up the Static: Apples and Daft Punk
Illustrated by Ella Cao
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Written by S Theocharides
// aussieapples.com.au writes that a Smitten is “an early season apple with a perfect crunch. Its firm flesh makes it more resistant to bruising. A great snack on-the-go.” I concur. It is a great snack on-the-go. I am constantly on-the-go now. It is early in the season. I am on-the-go. I am so happy I can feel it crunching out of my body. Fruit juice in my pores. My firm flesh makes me resistant to bruising. // I am waiting for a bus. Eating an apple. It’s really crisp. It’s a good one. I’m so happy I can feel it crunching out of the body. I’m listening to Daft Punk, probably. Harder Better Faster Stronger, or something. That kind of day. When I’m done I suck my fingers clean. Unhygienic. In the past I would have cleaned them in a subtle polite way. Never mind. I am so happy I can feel it crunching out of the body. Things are not going pear shaped. Things are so round. // On campus early. 9:15 AM. Not that early really. I am reading TIME IS THE THING A BODY MOVES THROUGH and eating an apple. I woke up with 15 minutes to dress and get my bus. I put two apples in my bag. For my travels. The skin is stuck in my teeth. I pry it out. A body is the thing an apple moves through. Apples are the thing a body moves through. Apples and time. An apple is an entire year. An entire body. An apple is an hour, ripening. A body.
// I pull an apple out from my bag. Its skin is touched red. My cheeks also. The cold flowering over them. It resembles nothing else. Well maybe it resembles a pear. The apple will either be very crisp or slightly grainy. Hard to tell these days.//
There are four pears yellowing in the crisper drawer. We should stew them, I say. I am not going to stew them. But still we should. We ought to stew them. They are so unhappy. // I am sitting on the South Lawn feeling tired in a dour end-of-semester way. I watch an apple core next to me go brown. I count the grass flies gathering on it. Can they taste the rot? Does it taste good on their little fly tongues? Will cold heighten the flavour? Do flies have tongues? // Isolation again. On my mum’s picnic blanket in my mum’s garden. Wearing an op shop shirt and my mum’s linen pants that she has hand sewn. Listening to PBS on the transistor my mum bought me for Christmas. Her old hat sits beside me in case it gets sunny. Her tote bag sits beside me full of things (my things). Soft fabric skin. Holding all my things. All our resemblances. There are ants crawling over the blanket. They smell the apple juice under my finger nails. Or the apple core in the garden bed next to me. My sister bought them for me. She is the only one who can leave the house right now. Open the gate and walk through it. // Listen: the apples are grainy. Soft. Ready to stew. Ready to compost into static. Time for warm syrup or worms, to help the flesh change. Dissolve. Heighten the flavour. The sugar will come out of the woodwork. The sugar will be so sweet.
column / memoir / I really like eating apples with a knife, V says. Do you know how characters in books used to go on their travels with a handkerchief tied to a stick over their shoulder, I say. Yes with an apple and a hunk of cheese and bread. I always wanted to do that. I still want to do that. Go on a little journey. Prepare food to take. An apple, stiff and red. A stick, stiff and red over my stiff shoulder. I am upright. Marching along a road. Just walking. At some point I will stop and eat. But now I am walking.
Don’t ask why that’s been lodged in my brain for 17 years, but it’s certainly one of many on-the-nose critiques of consumer capitalism the film has to offer. As a younger sibling who would exclusively get hand-me-down everything, cobbling together an outfit of well-worn and ill-fitting clothes felt all too similar to the plight of Rodney Copperbottom. Unsurprisingly, the grand message of Robots—that we don’t need shiny new things to make us happy—hit me hard.
Seizing the Opportunity of Op Shops
Illustrated by Yicheng Xu
It certainly doesn’t help that I was raised trawling through op shops far more regularly than Kmart. ‘Opportunity shop’ (yes, that’s what the ‘op’ stands for) is an apt title for the places of origin of the true gems I’ve hoarded ever since I’ve had pocket money to spend. In a way, op shops are like a crack in late-stage capitalism; they’re run by volunteers, things are donated for free, profits go to charity and purchases might even get re-donated. They’re also designed to offer an affordable option for clothing and homewares to those who can’t afford brand new. I’ll admit I’ve always patronised op shops out of desire for unique additions to my lifestyle rather than out of necessity, unless you count needing an impromptu outfit for a costume party.
It’s also hard not to feel a twinge of pain about op shops becoming dump sites for mounds of last year’s H&M impulse buys while all the unique items head to vintage stores. While it’s a better solution than putting them straight in landfill, the ethical aspect of op shops almost falls apart if new clothing is still being produced, bought, and abandoned at such a rapid rate. Buying and donating to the op shop is certainly helpful, but it’s not going to offset the damage of fast fashion. The mountains of donations op shops receive, especially during the lockdowns over 2020–2021, signal that people might think of them more as disposal sites than as places to shop –and that’s a problem in itself.
Some of the magic of op shops is clearly compromised, but there’s hope they can be revived. Many of Melbourne’s staple op shop spots have survived through lockdowns, the convenience of fast fashion and the encroaching threat of vintage stores. The possibility of flicking through random racks to find an Italian-made pure wool cardigan from the 1980s is still out there. For hand-me-down veterans like myself, a trip to the oppy is always worth it for one reason or another. Will op shops solve complex global issues like fashion waste and rampant free market capitalism? Likely not. The amount of joy and life-long treasures op shops house between their humble walls shouldn’t be underestimated, though. With some consistent patronage, these unofficial institutions will continue as havens for the forgotten artefacts of other people’s lives.
Written by Frank Tyson
Amongst the endless quotes from the 2005 film Robots is villain Ratchet’s slogan, “Why be you, when you can be new?”
As happens to anything approaching a utopia, however, capitalism has crept its way into the great cycle of op shops.
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What’s truly sad about the culture vintage shops represent is the upward trend of finding “high value” items from op shops and reselling them through eBay or Depop for a healthy profit.
As the general populace have noticed, the treasures to be found second-hand and the depreciating value of old items have suddenly been flipped with the word “vintage”. This has led to new stores exclusively selling the higher quality, more stylish items from yesteryear at much steeper mark-ups than you’d ever find at Vinnies. At these stores, clothes are also bought (rather than donated) from the public due to their resale value and profit incentive. To be fair, I have shopped at many vintage shops and found amazing items for not as much as brand new. At the end of the day, they probably help thin out the hordes of hipsters who regularly pick op shops clean of their meatiest articles.
If the genuinely well-made “vintage” items become investments rather than wardrobe additions, the joy of adding to the history of a leather jacket or cable-knit sweater becomes that little bit more industrial. It’s easy to say that the people who genuinely need op shops to stay affordable can always find appropriate items there, but the promise of op shops was never about bare, bare necessity. For those who really need it, and for those who don’t, the op shop is a place of true opportunity and wonder for what you might find. It’s a spin of the roulette wheel whether you’ll actually stumble upon something special, but at least it’s an even playing field. Oftentimes this means an item’s true value is rather inflated or deflated, but that’s part of an op shop’s market-disrupting charm.
Artwork by Janna Dingle
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Photography by Xiangyun Li
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Photography by Michael Sadeghi (top) and Xiangyun Li
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Photography by Xiangyun Li
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Photography by Michael Sadeghi
Photography by Anushka Tiwari
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Photography by Akash Anil Nair @thephotostudio
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Photography by Akash Anil Nair
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Photography by Ben Levy @lightknife.jpg
CREATIVE Artwork by Taya Lilly / art 57
The restaurant is Italian. You meet there, beneath a pair of fluorescent lightbulbs buzzing like mosquitoes; the only two people in sight apart from the waiter and the bartender. You smile at him, your date, and he smiles back. You know the basics: what he does for a living, where he’s from, how many years he’s been studying. It becomes difficult to remember what else people normally talk about. Your stomach gurgles, the only sound in the entire venue. You say you feel like you haven’t eaten for three days. He laughs, something awkward. When the menus are up, neither of you murmurs a word, breathing heavy behind the barricade of the specials board. You peer your eyes around the sides of the laminated paper. Have you always been this bad at socialising? Polite conversation ensues, no thanks to you, the pair of you pottering along, your tongues knotted in your gullets. He’s a handsome thing, with a glowing smile that softens his sharper, more intimidating edges, making him something to savour in the shallow lenses of your own eyes. And even with the overwhelming basil and oregano wafting from the kitchen, you can still smell the smoky fragrance of his cologne, a pleasant but stark aroma. A large capricciosa pizza and a fettuccine Alfredo arrive at the table. Maybe Italian wasn’t the right call, you consider, your mouth filling with the hardy stench of garlic. It burns your tongue, so you grab it, making a strained noise not unlike a grunting pig. Your date snorts. He laughs in a way neither of you have the whole evening, and it is intoxicating. The smile grows on you as if pulled by an external force, and suddenly you’re laughing too. It is the loud, ugly laugh you reserve for close friends and family, but you can’t rein it in. It feels like the cotton of the napkins and the stiff, white tablecloth has finally been pulled from the back of your throats. You can both breathe at last. He suggests the two of you get out of there. The waiter boxes up the rest of your pizza, and you take it back to your date’s car. He has an idea. He takes you by a drive-thru, where you pick up a soft serve and an order of fries to share. The pair of you park on the topmost floor of a shopping centre parking lot, so you can see out across the suburbs and the sky slipping slowly away into the horizon; the colours run like watercolour paints. On the bonnet you share the pizza, the fries and the ice cream, testing different combinations of toppings dipped in the soft serve. You talk about anything that comes to your mind, not restricted by the expectations of a dinner date. Leaning back, you both stare into the night, learning, sharing, remembering stories once not deemed worth the telling but that both have you in stitches somehow. After a while, you tumble around in the car for a bit. Nothing crazy, just pashing, a few love bites scattered across your neck. Knocking teeth, limbs bumping into headrests and each other’s half-bent joints—it’s fun, nothing serious, and it feels good to be wanted. You’ll tell your parents that the mosquitoes made a meal of you to explain the hickeys on your neck, even though none of you will actually buy it. When he drops you back to your car, it starts to rain. Driving home in the wet, you smile out at the glistening road. Running a hand down your neck, you admire your mosquito bites, the little splotches of red making proof of a night to remember, buzzing like static in the deep cavern of your eardrums.
Ordinary
Illustrated by Joanne Guo Phenomena: Mosquito Bites
Written by Helena Pantsis
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Standing behind the checkout counter at work I felt as though there were tens of rows of nipples staring out from the shelf by my right ear, waxed nubs pearling under a low light. Do the customers see that too? A spindly man pottered around the store for five minutes before buying a carrot with a splinter down the middle. He paid 72 cents on card, all for a carrot I’d dropped earlier on the floor. He smiled widely and giggled when I asked if he was after a bag.
“Thanks, I’ll give myself icy tips with these.” Relief, something new. But I should get home as quickly as possible. One by one I toss them to him: “Do you need the bag?” He says he doesn’t and stuffs them into every pocket he has. Not a speck of yellow on him but bulging at every angle like a spore-riddled leaf. Bitter Preserved Written by Sybilla George 59
Illustrated by Ella Cao / creative prose
My grandma brings us lemons every week, sometimes twice. They grow in such abundance on her row of trees during the cold months that the family is provided with far more lemons than they could need for a whole year. A lemony tang pervades the senses so that even food from a restaurant suburbs away is blanketed by a long, resounding bitterness. Grandma keeps none for herself. She says the sight of them springing up beyond her bedroom window each morning is too much as it is. She says the mere sight of them is indecent, the way a protruding nipple forms of the sun-facing curve. Mum cringes. There’s no un-seeing it. When my uncle suggested Grandma prune the trees back to stem the tide, she told him he could do it himself then, could help her out a bit, but he never had a free weekend or a good enough pair of snippers.
“I’ll be right,” he said, and put it upright in his pocket so while he walked home the hairy tip could peek out at the streets and houses passing by. In a pool of shade under a tree in the park, my friend Sunny munches on a thick, crunchy carrot as he awaits my arrival. He could be perfectly content if I never arrived at all. Hidden in the grass is a patchwork of carrot hairs like pick-up-sticks, peeled and placed by the thumb and forefinger laying by their side. I’ve come on business. (I’ve brought him some lemons, though they are meant to stay in the family.) I’m trying to cultivate some positivity, even if it’s via disposal. It’s an exchange, a trade. He gets: lemons. I get: loss of lemons. And long-term, positive gain. Otherwise I’ll tear into them with my bare nails and let the prickly juice get into my cuticles.
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‘Oyster’ by Sophia Zikic / graphic column 61
Written by Eleanore Arnold-Moore
poetry /
Illustrated by Sally Yuan
content warning: allusions to misogyny and sex 62
I am laced with desire, reaching for your burnished violet haze but my flame gutters at every glaring prohibition. I gaze at existence through a prism but am never the glimmer grazing it. I want to caress iridescence and throughswirlyour oil slick, but I must rehearse every open devotion, each glisten fastened behind the curtain, and staunch each tear lest it leaves a shimmer trailing down my maskingcheek,those hypnotic sequins.
I thirst for moonshine elation, distilled in the dusk of the psychedelic underground. I seek shelter in the speakeasy sanctuary of your embrace and long for delirium to dissolve in the amphitheatre of my mouth. I ought to revel in your luminescence while I’m lucid but their disdain has me wallowing in your oblivion. When lustre dripped from my fingers they blanched like it was blood. Lustrous
/ poetry
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Illustrated by Sally Yuan
In my radiance they deemed I was irradiated and fled from all our love. Like glitter they fear us touching anything, worried our rough irregularities will cling. So, do I shroud the spectrum with a synthesised smile or illuminate my opalescence and wait to be reviled? We are stardust, contraband made of wanting so, they line us up and snort us off the stage affronted just to get a buzz. Tell me why our lust is illicitbut they watch it anyway.
poetry / Illustrated
content warning: allusions to death (gory imagery) 64
Snowdrop Written by
Winter is here. Waifs and mudlarks turn angels in the snow, so Our little joke goes. We, as children, warm our frosted ankles by the fireplace. Then an unwelcome thud ushers The waxen corse, ah! Gurning its piebald pate, Leaking its pâté de foie gras ichor Like love songs daubing over Our abortive hearts fitfully jumping as I, With trembling hands, lave in dells Under trees mulched with half-whispered whims. Winter is here. Snow deadens wasteful words. If from the rot of May blooms the flower of our June, Aye, I will die for you. Matthew Lee by Joanne Guo
/ poetry Illustrated by Amber Jepsen buses flood the streets a basin of drops a ballad of buildings withoutIabluefallsblink.blooms.birdsongIblemish.banal,browse,onyou.wells–billionhuesknowyou,knowing you. breath bails blood bursts funny,burnsbody, cursory glance. monday morning Written by Akanksha Agarwal 65
poetry / theresLIGHTSVVVVROOOOOOOOHUMFAFAfaHUhuhhhhhhhhhhhhvvvvvvvvvvv!camera!action!somethingaboutstaring at the sun the white burns when they flash rhythmically rocking musicshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupdownupdownupdownupdownbackforthbackforthbackforthbackforthSTOPisnice i like hummmmmmm SNAP SNAP hummmmmmm SNAP and the bvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv in my body only for music the other drumming id like to seriously stop it im tryna think ....... Good evening ladies and gentlemen, thats not inclusive but gentlefolk or esteemed bastards or guys or yees and haws or peeps or it doesnt feel right Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming. 66
Written by Jocelyn Saunders Illustrated by Ivan Jeldres
Opening Night
my mouth my mouth / folded between the cushions / cotton tongue, full of lint / take this plump mouth of mine / take it take it take it / suck it, eat it, swallow it / freeze it, thaw it / today i feel so pretty standing in your lipstick lollipop love / god is pretty god is a real hunk / dressed in all black / god thinks i’m sexy i know it / like / bitter sugar burn / i chopped up this sweet juicy onion for you / will you eat this soup? / tomorrow is cold tomorrow is a humdrum winter and your weight is pulled back / taut, your body like an arrow / is it pointed towards me? / i dream i dream of alphabet soup and a frozen lake / i dream of cars / how many limbs in each car how many limbs in each home / your body is so heavy / against me / towards me / your body is so still and i am a coyote summer / a hunting knife spring / destined for heart heavy explosions / placate me placate me / i sleep i eat i dream / your body / my mouth my mouth ana/tomise Aeva Milos by Melana Uceda
/ poetry 67
Written by
Illustrated
I have to do something! Should I call Peppermint? Maybe their wish magic could help? No that won’t work—Peppermint has told me time and time again that any wish magic that messes with time could have disastrous consequences for the space-time continuum!
2. Sprinkle with edible glitter 3. Carve your burning question into the cheese with your knife. For me, I’m going to carve into the first wheel of cheese “When will Amon leave the demon conference?” and “Will Selena Sparklemoon see Amon again?”. Try to be as specific as you can—the more details the better the answer will be!
4. We’re supposed to wait for mould to grow on the cheese, but that will take ages, and we just don’t have the time! This is what the thyme is for: sprinkle it in a flurry, and keep applying until you see the first signs of mould begin to take hold. Sprinkle more intensely until the mould is fully formed.
Hello hello! This is your local apothecary and witch Selena Sparklemoon. I just got back from my great big road trip around the globe with Amon, and it was a blast! We visited so many farmers’ markets, bought so much honey and danced and raved in all the cemeteries worldwide! I wouldn’t have done it without my ol’ family’s recipe for hearty stew—now I have so many wonderful memories with Amon. Today is Amon’s last day before they have to go to the demon realm for a once in a mortal’s lifetime demon conference. I know, I know, our big road trip was supposed to be a big ol’ goodbye before they left, but I just had too much fun! I need to know if they’ll be okay. I need to know when they’ll come back. To do that, I’m going to draw on the power of cheese! You will need the following: Two wheels of cheese—you can make this yourself, but the process takes weeks, and I don’t have time for that! So instead, I’m just going to use the pre-made cheese I bought from one of the farmers’ markets in Greece. Three sprinkles of edible glitter—another musthave from a farmers’ market in Egypt. While it will make the cheese dazzle with brilliance, be careful not to get it everywhere! Nine pinches of thyme—we really want to speed things up! One carving knife
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Illustrated by Jessica Norton
5. The mold should be in the shape of your answer—in this case I got two, one on each wheel of cheese! Alrighty, I will be right back, gotta take a look-see at these answers. Hopefully they’re the ones I’m looking for! *** Okay, this is bad—I’ve repeated the recipe nine times, but the answer’s always the same! I’m probably never gonna see them again! They’re gonna be stuck in that demon conference for at least six decades, and then after that there’s the centennial hellfire festival that lasts for another 66 years. I’ll be an old hag by the time they come back, if I’m even alive at all!
Hocus-Pocus Recipes and Rituals: The Future Is Yours, the Future Is Cheese
1. Lay your cheese wheels next to each other.
Written by Marcie Di Bartolomeo
What do I do then? How do I spend more time with Amon? Am I really ready to say goodbye to them like No,this?this calls for drastic measures—time for cheese to truly do its thing! I am now going to show y’all how to do the impossible: stop time. You will need the following: One wheel of cheese—farmers’ market to the Ninerescue!sprinkles of edible glitter—we’re going in bold. Who cares if we mess up the house! One whole bottle of thyme—desperate times calls for desperate measures! One carving knife—sharpest one I got, It’s gotta count! 1. Get your cheese wheel in position. 2. Sprinkle with edible glitter like wildfire! 3. Carve two words into the cheese, big bold letters now. “STOP TIME”. 4. Dump the whole bottle of thyme on top and spread with your knife. 5. Mould should be covering the words “STOP TIME” in glowing shades of green. Let’s see if it worked! I’m going outside to check on Amon, pronto! *** Things are worse! Time has indeed frozen, but so has ThisAmon!won’t do! There’s no point to an endless day of fun if Amon isn’t here to enjoy it with me… Guess it’s time for one more wheel of cheese. Repeat steps 1–3 but carve “RESUME TIME” instead. Mould should be covering the words. Time should be back. Amon should hopefully be back too. I can see Amon is flying around again, as if nothing had ever happened. …That’s good, good news! I’m heading out the door, time to give my bestie the biggest hug ever! …Why do I hear sirens? *** Bad news, I’m going to witch jail for using cheese to mess with time—apparently that’s illegal. See ya next time as I tell ya how to make jam to get us out of this sticky situation! / column / creative Illustrated by Jessica Norton 69
Maybe if they hired someone new—but of course, Lydia new that a new staff member was not in the budget for the venue. Nor was the fridge light. Nor were the necessary repairs. She often wondered at what point the owner would concede, instead of holding on to this business: the place had mortal wounds and it was simply a matter of time. Surely it would be better to give up now rather than tens of thousands more dollars? Maybe Saturday, the next day, would be better, but good Saturdays only flared the embers of the owner’s dying faith. They had already stopped trading on Tuesdays, and Wednesdays pointlessly remained. During weekdays last week, Georgie had told Lydia they had made $1,700: barely enough to cover their wages.
A couple of weeks ago, the manager, Georgie, had lit up a cigarette when walking home with one of the closing staff, Lydia. They walked halfway up the street together, and where they parted ways at the lights, Georgie told Lydia that she could quit if she wanted to.
Buildings towered over them. Lydia watched the yellow squares of light. In one, a cleaner vacuuming a hall; in another, a man sat at a desk with his back to them. He stood up and faced the window. Lydia couldn’t quite tell, but she felt as though their eyes met.
Will paid their bill; apparently, she had helped him out with a shift a while ago. They took the lift down. Lydia noticed they didn’t speak the whole way down, but it didn’t feel like the silences between them at work: rather, it was a relaxed, companionable quiet. Will took her to her tram stop.
“You’re not getting fired. I can just tell you’re not happy. Go home and think about it.”
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“That was fun,” Lydia told him, and then she jumped on her tram. She spent the trip leaned against the side of the carriage, staring at the mesh of yellow poles and rubber handles all down its interior. A drunk pair of girls laughed at something the whole way home. An older man in a loose-fitting suit sat by himself.
Silent Fridays, then, felt particularly despondent. A failed weekend night, a venue that couldn’t even lure desperate corporates who couldn’t get in anywhere else. Will walked Lydia to the street corner where they usually parted ways.
In spite of herself, Lydia came back to work—but only because she thought of Will, the other waiter. She couldn’t image closing with just Georgie and her misery, so she felt it was a harsh to consign him to that fate.
“Want a drink?” he asked her. They didn’t part ways—an hour later, they sat at a warm little rooftop bar, surrounded by their empty cups.
Friday night closing was devoid of laughter and speaking. That it was familiar made it no less oppressive: watching the weariness in the manager’s eyes and her clamped lips that barely seemed to move, even when she spoke, lent little impetus to breaking the silence.
Written
Murder on the Dancefloor: Tales From Late-Stage Hospitality— The Dying Venue by Rupert Azzopardi by
Soap over the bench, over the irritatingly persistent sticky patch. A leaning metal bench propped up by a doorstop. A broken fridge light that the manager had told them would be fixed in the next week, four months ago. A speaker played a less-than-inspiring mashup playlist of late-2000s pop and late-2010s gym music. Three staff not talking to each other, just scrubbing, drying, wiping, and drying again. This was the ambience of the venue at 11:30pm, two hours before the website said they were due to close. No knockoffs, although the staff wouldn’t want them even if the venue could afford them. They wanted to pour the last of the scummy soap water down the drain in the kitchen, then rush to the tiny changing room one by one and change out of the work clothes that were barely dirtied and make their way to their respective trams.
Meadow Nguyen70
content warning: reference to a car crash 71
Written by Tah Ai Jia by Manyu Wang
swirling magnificence a sliver of a silhouette in my vision i draw a constellation with my eyes twirling of colours of red and blue and black and blue aurora would weep if she saw this one step, two step a drumming in my ears for a song i cannot hear my feet stumbling into submission a car accident, a tree steam billowing from the front seat a song on repeat, i am falling but i am not, I woke up with vertigo, and now I can’t get up
/ poetry Illustrated
Femme Fatale
I sang you to bed to avoid your mistrust and I turned Eros blind to our bodies entwined.
The hot Tears of Eros bleed freely in lust since the scars you will find are ones I left behind. Your hands rake the flesh that my wet lips once touched. You taste the sweet blood, just like cranberries crushed.
Your hands rake the flesh that my wet lips once touched. I poured you a cup filled with honey and musk for the flavour of pain comes with pleasure combined. You drank sweetened blood, just like cranberries crushed.
Written by Tandie Banana Illustrated by Grace Reeve content warning:
allusions to sexual violence and possibly murderpoetry / 72
Your hands rake the flesh that my wet lips once touched and caress at the cuts that my blade left behind. You taste the sweet blood, just like cranberries crushed. A charlatan’s promise: a tongue edged with rust has a way with its words that bewitches the mind. Your hands rake the flesh that my wet lips once touched. My sensuous touch gave your face such a blush it resembled a rose, blooming free, yet confined. A rose made of blood, sweet like cranberries crushed.
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Illustrated by Ivan Jeldres content warning: language Sweet Love, I say, I won’t give you my soul To wear like stolen finery. Alas, I’d sooner thrust my tongue in someone’s hole Than shove myself up Cupid’s ample ass. A glutted rose’s thorns will decorate This passioned season’s summer-wilted end, So if you yearn to weep the tears of hate, Abandon pleasure; welcome pain’s descent. A shallow tryst may leave the heart devoid, But I would deify the wanton flesh And drink the carnal poison to avoid The cherub’s arrow pointed at my chest. Romance and Lust are villains too akin To tell apart within this cage of skin. Mercutio Written by Tandie Banana
coarse, sexual
‘DIY Craft Guide’ by Weiting Chengraphic column / 74
/ graphic column 75
My house is slightly north of the Swan River. Pressed up against a main road on the edge of a little street, beneath tepid sky spattered in fog that shapes itself into sweeping ghosts aboveGeorgeus.
George impersonates his brother’s would-be-stoic frown. “It’s alright. This is ourWhenCountry.”theboys tell their story in town, one of their grandmothers affirms that their own Country would never harm them. “Aw… They were just makin’ a fun. They know you.”
“A ghost calling him an asshole,” I giggle. He rolls a cigarette, needs me to cup my hands around his face so he can light it in the wind. In the cup of my hands, his face is the only smudge of warm colour in the dulcet blue of darkness.
tells me there’s space where only Gooniyandi are truly safe. “Well, you can go there, but if you’re not family you won’t wanna stay overnight.” Country that guards itself. He has a story or two on that, like he does for everything. He describes a woman-like scream that pierces the night. George and his brother turn pale on the back of a ute parked up by the water. Nothing and no one around for at least fifty kilometres.
I realised I wanted to meet Emma after I met her house, with all its blankets and windchimes of seashells and driftwood, its overgrown garden with those persistent rope swings secured in the great dead tree.
Drinkable, he asserts, though Emma admits it’s not clear water by any stretch. You swim in your clothes, and they might keep you cool for a while once you emerge back into the incredible dry heat. George reckons you can work for hours in dry heat.
In his early years, George was a vibrant haunt of the Kimberley“Theyregion.called me Casper,” he says. “That was back when I was a little naked kid running around Hall’s Creek.
Emma sits on the couch. Her son stands by the door, moving as he talks. By the table, by the kitchen, back at the door so he can blow nicotine vapour out into the dewy evening. I rock in the chair as I listen to stories from Up North.
George informs that the Fitzroy River swells and shrinks reliably. (Now he corrects that it used to be reliable.)
“I only swam across that river twice, and both times because girls were watching,” George says. “I was floating in the middle of it, looking up at the sky for sunset.” He leans back and waves his hand at the ceiling, eyes blooming with North of the Swan
Written and illustrated by Zoë Hoffman
content warning: mentions of domestic violence, references to the Stolen Generations, mild coarse language creative non-fiction / 76
Pale kid with white-blond hair, running around butt naked.” He woke his uncle Russel once to ask for an icy pole. Calling out for “Uncle Ah-sole,” because he couldn’t say Russel. George’s laugh breaks open his mouth and spreads over his upturned brow. “Just this little white thing, he thought I was a ghost.” His hair is dark now, thick, his skin slightly browned by sun.
South of the Swan. Hardwood floor with warm rugs. The windowsill Pilea leans tall in its pot, leaves springing out, suspended at the ends of their green stems, as though jumping ship. Knitted blankets drape over the cushioned rocking chair, the old couch.
She tries to replicate it: “Ey baw! Eyy boy!” She tells me I can hear it firsthand when I go Up North. In this living room, she’s told me violent stories from Up North, too. George, as well, though he self-identifies (always with a wink) as a lover, not a fighter. There’s a duality to conversation around that Country; a space imagined as both sublime, and ugly. I recall Emma’s complaints of a culture of ignoring domestic abuse. “And when I say something,” I hear her saying, “I’m the one who’s out of line!”
“It comes ashore,” he says to a laughing audience. (Now I know this was an embellishment, that it came close to the bank, even lifted its head—but stayed submerged.) George stands feet far apart, edging away from the crocodile. “No, no—and we were there with the lighter—just like—” One hand holds the line while the other flicks on a lighter beneath it. Tongue pushes air past teeth as he flicks the lighter on again and again. His eyes wide, lips pulled back, contorted. Everyone is laughing, including George, who drops his tools and stands up straight again. “And the line breaks and it fucks off,” he concludes.
“If you were describing your father’s generation,” someone interjects, “where would it be on a scale of Comfortable to Stolen?” “Oh, Dad was pretty comfortable,” George says. “But you know, the beautiful thing about being Up North, is no one ever—it’s not—that idea about not belonging…” He squints at something intangible grasped in his hand. “That’s a Western idea.” Hands pocketed again now. “When I used to worry about not belonging, family up there, in Fitzroy, would say…” One palm unsheathes, faces the ceiling. “What’re you talking about?” The other hand comes out to point at the invisible self stood before him. “You’re your father’s son.” Finger shoots down, strikes palm for emphasis. “You blong ‘ere!” Eyes looking straight ahead, out from under a straight-set brow. When I ask George how he feels about such questions as those, all he says is: “No, I don’t tend to get funny about that sort of thing.”
“I have a great grandfather who was white,” George begins, without going into detail. But here’s the detail, for our benefit: White great grandfather, but claimed to be Mexican, because he was running from something he’d done over Elsewhere. “What you did if you fucked up over East, was you fucked off to the Kimberley.” Disguise by word of mouth. “He had his dual slings.” George’s hands crisscrossing over his chest to trace those holstered slings.
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“It’s even clearer Up North,” assures George, gazing skyward through the glass. “You should see it.” He looks at me and says, “I hope I haven’t made you afraid of Fitzroy Crossing.” He tells me it’s something about the land that stands out to him, something beautiful. “Weather, but more,” he likes to say. He says I have to see it.
At a friend’s house, George says, “We caught a crocodile once.” The rest of us laugh—how? “Sear a bit of meat, tie it to fishing line, fling it in the water, have a few beers, come with a net back to all these prawns. One time we come back.” He looks at us. “And the line is taut.” His hand traces straight along the invisible line. “We tug, and—swishswishswish!” His hand, sudden and swift, serpentines towards us, the little crocodile in the water.
At some point, because it came up in conversation, a friend asks George: “So, how much of you is Aboriginal?”
“My father looks kind of like a tanned Mexican,” he says. “And my mama’s white,” he adds, with the un-silent h
We bundle up bags with blankets, squish them into the backseat space of George’s car, and start flowing down the freeway stream. The car shakes and rumbles like it has orange gravel stuck somewhere in a metal crevice, but steadily it drives downward. Further south than South of the River, there’s Down South. It’s saturated, all luscious green in the little town of Margaret River. I can taste magic in little zaps in the grape and berry wine, the sizzling cold strawberry champagne. For the weekend, we rearrange the borrowed house into a temporary home, squeeze a huge mattress in the floorspace between three couches that make a cosy niche. Now we have a comfy cubby cove, a place to eat our IGA camembert and Dairy Farm smoked gouda, our expensive chocolates from the Chocolate Factory. Through the window, the night sky wriggles with constellations that don’t dare come alive above the street-lit city of Perth.
“My Jugu Lily.” Lily was Gooniyandi, decided she didn’t want to marry the husband promised to her by law. She returned to her family and her promised husband in Ngurtuwarta after her too-fair babies were stolen. Her stolen daughter Ivy ended up at Moola Bulla station, married a Gija man, their son Steven initiated in Gija law. Steven grew up on the stations, and now he lives on Lily’s land, Ngurtuwarta, in Fitzroy Crossing.Butlike I said, George doesn’t really get into that.
/ creative non-fiction purples, pinks, blues. “Looking up, thinking… okay, don’t think about what’s below you.” The murky depth creeps endlessly down, but his hand dismisses the thought with a wave beneath his stretching back. “Don’t think about how deep this part is.” He looks at me, swiping, swatting the depth away. He breathes. “And it was serene. But then I came to my senses and paddled out.” George swivels off his back to paw at the air, doggy paddling back to riverbank. Emma says George gets his skill in storytelling from his dad. “There’s something about the way Steven speaks.”
Emma said, “He was swarthy.” My mind paints a sombrero and fringed shirt to match the two steaming pistols, rough sweaty sun-damaged skin. “They travelled round on mules and donkeys.” On the donkeys: George’s dark-white great grandfather and his great grandmother Emily.
I remark about how scared I would’ve been, but George explains why it was not so terrifying: “No, no—those ones are freshies, in Fitzroy River, only little things, want nothing to do with ya.” Hands sheathed into his coat pockets.
I didn’t wanna be mad today I didn’t wanna be mad today I didn’t want to be mad today I didn’t wanna look at that smooth metal bar I didn’t wanna look at those white orderly bricks I wanted to be home today I wanted I am from those people and their cotton I am from the shower drain I am from a lost ribbon I am from dirty I am from the river I am from the square fire I am from yelling, barking, laughing I am from european birch outside my window I am from stiff wool skirt I am from advance australia fair I am from using the proper cutlery I am from no touching I am from growling stomach I didn’t wanna see barbeque today I didn’t wanna see sticky fingers I didn’t wanna see angel cake I wanted to stay home today I wanna be home today I didn’t want the river to be cold I didn’t want the water to be stagnant I didn’t want to see the big red rock I didn’t want to see them climb on it I didn’t wanna be mad today I didn’t wanna be mad today I didn’t want to be mad today 26th
January
poetry / Illustrated
Written by Jocelyn Saunders by Ivan Jeldres
content warning: references to colonisation 78
Written by Hugo Russell 79
Illustrated by Grace Reeve a gentle woodsmoke trails to where the grass is frozen silver at the edge of memory on the edge of town where the grass is frozen, silver change buys a lolly bag at the servo on the edge of town, it is warm inside and smells of liquorice change buys a lolly bag at the servo down the road from grandma’s house, it is warm inside and smells of liquorice the fire has been blazing since morning down the road from grandma’s house we find a burned-out car at mum’s old school the fire has been blazing since morning and it is no great surprise the burned-out car at mum’s old school clouds the air with smoke and it is no great surprise an ashy scent lingers clouds, the air with smoke and my breath billowing an ashy scent lingers that day, mum showed me her childhood home my breath billowing at the edge of memory, that day mum showed me her childhood home a gentle woodsmoke trails to at the edge of memory
/ poetry
Illustrated by Birdy Carmen
poetry / 80
It grows unlike the sunflower in my garden it grows strong and beguiling a slight brush with wit and the scent of lovers’ longing Ghosts in my living room are writing prose And they make me wonder for whom I dance and light candles in bright rooms and whether sense is something to be made at all from anything Now, I am transfused in the wallows and shallows of Arleta’s softenedmusicbuttered spinning on rolled ‘r’s and sidestepped triplets which make me more hungry than anything Solace, Solange
Written by Birdy Carmen
My breast is wet with wine and droops like a greyhound’s tongue The nipple expectant as pursed lips in purple glass Round and heavy with lamentations A Totouchstonelistenoutfor the right words in the drowning clef and belittled melodies of day-to-day ennui and tea
/ poetry 81
UMSU and the Media Office are located in the city of Melbourne, on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders—past, present and emerging—and acknowledge that the land we are on was stolen and sovereignty was never ceded.
