2023 Edition Three

Edition Three 2023

“It Has Felt Deliberately Slow”: University Staff Strike For Secure Work, Fair Pay As Enterprise Bargaining Stalls

Selina Zhang p. 14

FEATURED ARTIST

MEDIA X PEOPLE OF COLOUR

Creative: Simran Khera p. 45

Design: Tony Hao p. 46

Farrago's Pride Month Reading List p. 84

What is analog?

Google says it’s a term used to describe an object or system not involving the use of computerised technologies; the opposite of anything digital. We use the word technology to refer to anything digital or online, yet we often forget that one of the first, most ancient forms of technology and knowledge systems was Aboriginal. These sacred knowledges have underpinned the development of technology as we know it today, and have contributed to all of our understandings of what Country means.

Country is more than just the land we traverse, the land we now call “Australia”; it is so much more than what non-Indigenous folk would label a place. The browning leaves of acacia trees as they rustle in the face of sweltering, torrential, biting winds, the soft trickles of fresh water flowing downstream, the fish that swim within it, the bees that linger near blossoming flowers that persist in the face of oncoming winter. Even you, a human, reading this edition of Farrago on Wurundjeri land. These are all Country, all formed and derived from the same matter by Ancestors who continue to live on, in land, water and sky. Country loves, cares for and provides for us the same way we love, care for and provide for it.

“Australia”—or more specifically “Melbourne”, where Farrago is conceptualised, devised and materialised—is first and foremost Indigenous land. There is no “Australia” without the blood, sweat, tears, joy, laughter, sadness, love and care of its Indigenous peoples. Most importantly, there would be no “Australia” without the sacrifices of tens of thousands of First Nations people. They and their children were brutally massacred, stolen, heavily indoctrinated and systematically oppressed for the sole purpose of perpetrating unfounded white supremacist values for centuries. There is no amount of acknowledgement that can take away the generational, cultural traumas and pain that have been inflicted upon First Nations people.

Farrago has been around as the oldest student publication in Australia for nearly a hundred years. A hundred years of the continued perpetuation of silent oppression. A hundred years’ worth of chances to make way for Indigenous students and staff to accede this position of immense power and influence to speak their truths, their stories. A hundred years’ worth of missed opportunities in that regard.

Though we are merely a tiny speck in a vast stratosphere of Australia’s media leviathans, Farrago and its 2023 editors realise that providing a sincere, earnest acknowledgement of the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which we live and work is the bare minimum. When all is said and done, Farrago should be a mouthpiece not only for and by the students of the University of Melbourne, but also (and arguably, most of all) for First Nations students in their relentless, courageous pursuit of Indigenous sovereignty.

We pay the deepest respects to the Traditional Owners and Custodians of all seven lands on which the University of Melbourne is spread across, and consequently where Farragos will be read, distributed, written and created. We pay our respects to the Wurundjeri, the Dja Dja Wurrung, the Yorta Yorta and the Boonwurrung people, as well as to each and every single one of our Indigenous readers and contributors.

EDITORIAL

A photograph develops slowly in the time it takes for a memory to rewrite itself again and again. Moments are frozen in sepia hues upon silver-plated sheets of copper. Time ticks forwards to the rhythm of the click-clacking of typewriters within mahogany studies. The first moving picture gallops forward in yellowed stills. The swell of an orchestra accompanies the first silent films. And then the handle of a tinny metallic music box turns like a cosmic minute hand and we find ourselves in the era of VHS footage and cassettes. Time is sliced and spliced in black tape. Memory rewrites itself over and over.

The stories in the News department of Farrago are found not in dusty yellow newsprint lining a table of an antique store, but right here and now on our campus. University staff strike for secure work and fair pay while students speak out about the removal of dual delivery courses. These are not just tales of yore, destined to be lost to time. These are happening here and now.

In the Creative section, you will read impressions of developing photographs tinged with blood, the memory of chlorine-soaked spandex, the slosh of champagne through intestines and the liner notes of an imaginary band from their last album before their break up.

Non-Fiction is a vast collection of vignettes of bygone eras and personal histories that have come back to life. Read about the timelines of love letters, the perfect imperfections of film photography and poignant reflections on analog synthesisers. Dark clouds of smoke fill the room as you are taken back in time—analog exists on an astral plane that is material yet immaterial at the same time.

The Design section captures glimpses of nostalgia and disenchantment—abandoned arcades, the loneliness of graffitied payphones at night and empty subway platforms…

Welcome to the pages of Farrago Edition 3, Analog.

Love,

Weiting, Carmen, Josh and Xiaole

2023 Farrago Editors

Photography by Chenyi Liang

Letter to the Editors

Dears Eds,

I was a bit late in coming to the first print edition for 2023. How surprised was I to see on p. 7 that the GSA has quietly become a department of UMSU. I really expected more fanfare!

Very exciting now that UMSU will have the full resources it deserves to provide its fantastic activities and events and not have to watch the SSAF bucket siphoned by an organisation suffering such a sad existential crisis. That misery really needed to end for them.

I hope this means Farrago can get some more resources to cover the news cycle.

Warmly, KG

CORRECTIONS

A piece published as part of News in Brief on Page 14 of Farrago Edition 2, 2023: Choreomania incorrectly stated that Senator Lidia Thorpe was blocked by police from storming the stage to disrupt the "Let Women Speak" rally led by Kellie-Jay Keen in Melbourne on 18 March. This incident occurred at a similar rally led by Kellie-Jay Keen in Canberra on 23 March, not at the 18 March Melbourne rally.

We apologise for the mistake, and have removed the relevant sentence from the online version of Edition 2 and published a corrections notice on Page 2.

The remainder of the piece is accurate as published.

If you notice any errors in our print or online publications, please notify us at editors@farragomagazine.com.

Illustration by Raven Zhang

UMSU INTERNATIONAL

by Sanskar Agarwal, UMSU International President

UMSU International held our annual Night Market and had over 8,000 students show up. Engagement in general has been good for our events with our breakfasts serving up to 200 students every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We recently completed our International Student Survey which was co-designed with the University. It has gotten 1667 responses and is being compiled to be submitted to chancellery. This report will form the basis of all issues UMSU International raises with the University through the year.

On the advocacy front we’ve recently gotten the university to finish installation of vending machines with dispensation of women’s hygiene products and are now pushing for free condoms, lubricants, and dental dams. Another massive win for us was getting scholarship extensions for Iranian PhD students who had significant delays in visas being granted with some having to wait for years.

Another thing I am hoping to raise before the end of my term is making it a valid reason to get an extension for assignments when you have 3 or more due on the same week because some of us are real victims of this torture.

This is probably the last report from my end because the nominations for UMSU International elections are currently open(As of me writing this report on 2 May) and we’ll have a new president take office soon. Feel free to drop by to my office to say bye-bye!

The UMSU President, UMSU General Secretary,

Campus Coordinator, and

President did not submit a report for Edition 3.

Burnley

GSA

SOUTHBANK UPDATES

By Annalyce Wiebenga, Southbank Coordinator

We have now launched our weekly breakfasts! Join us in The Hub Student Lounge 8am–10am on Thursdays during the semester teaching period, plus SWOTVAC. Some weeks we have wraps, savoury pastries and muffins, while other weeks we will have chia pots, muesli, sweet pastries and some bacon-and-egg goodness. We always provide fruit! We have just secured a grant from the university to keep the tasty treats coming.

Our BBQs continue on Tuesdays 12pm–2pm during semester, and we restock the Student Lounge’s bread-bin when the delivery gods are kind to us. Our collectives are chugging along; if you missed them, keep an eye out for Semester Two details!

What else have we been up to? We joined other UMSU reps for the staff strike in early May to support university staff fighting for a better deal with management.

What’s up next semester? Our Activities Coordinator Helen is working alongside George Paton Gallery to bring workshops to our campus. We’re also working with UMSU Creative Arts to bring their big arts festival here for a taster! Then… the big one: the Southbank Ball. Stay tuned.

Having issues with the university? Come have a chat! We are especially keen to hear about issues with timetables and campus facilities, but we’re happy to have a chat about any issue at uni!

You can find us on Level 2 of the Southbank Library behind the double doors. If the lights are on, we’re probably around! Otherwise, contact us digitally:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/umsusouthbank

Instagram: @umsu_southbank, or https://www.instagram.com/umsu_southbank/ UMSU Website: https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/communities/southbank/ Email: southbank@union.unimelb.edu.au

Keep an eye on our socials, the UMSU website, and posters going up around Southbank for the latest details.

Indigenous | Harley Lewis Report not submitted.

People of Colour | Mohamed Hadi Report not submitted.

Queer | Mehul Gopalakrishnan and Leslie Ho

Hey everyone, so much has happened since our last report. It’s not something that can be addressed quickly in this 100-word report, but in short: we want all students to know that transphobia will not be tolerated on campus, that “feminism” that excludes trans women and sex workers is not feminism, and that freedom of speech is not freedom if it incites hatred and infringes upon a group of people’s right to exist as they are. On a lighter note, we have plenty of collectives and events running regularly in the department, so if you want to be a part of our lovely queer community, check out our socials and website, or come over to the Queer Space in Building 168!

Women | Ngaire Bogemann and Alessandra Soliven

It’s been a busy few weeks for us in the Women’s Department! From meeting with Senator Larrissa Waters to turning the Women’s Room into a more welcoming space (shameless plug, please come use the space!) to catching up with college student leaders, we’ve been hard at work setting things us for a super fun and slay rest of the year—watch this space! If you’re keen to get involved, reach out to us at any time on our socials or via email at womens@union. unimelb.edu.au.

Activities | Arya Kushwaha and Tvisha Purswani Report not submitted.

Clubs & Societies | Kimmy Ng and Renee Thierry

Wow! Time flies when you’re having fun! At C&S this month, we have been drafting new policy for the protection of the wellbeing of students at club events, preparing events for Semester Two, and developing resources for club executives. We’ve had many wins recently, including finally opening locker applications for club storage on campus! When we’re not in our super long committee meetings, you can find us sorting mail, assisting students with club issues and admin, as well as fighting for resources for clubs! We’re so excited to see all the incredible events clubs will run towards the end of semester!

Creative Arts | Savier D'Arsie-Marquez and Abbey Crowley

Semester One has almost come to a close… but fear not, the Creative Arts Department is just vamping up with a range of opportunities for you to sink your teeth into before exams!

Firstly, we are calling all ARTISTS to submit an expression of interest form for this year’s MUDfest: Transformation. Whether you’re interested in short films, dance, clay-making, or… Taylor swift lyrics, if you’ve got your heart set on a project and want to share it with others—there’s no better time to get involved!

The Creative Arts department have recently held an event called the “Arts and Crafts Market” on South Lawn (Wednesday 3 May) which saw many small businesses sell fantastic trinkets and crafty items! Coming up later in the semester, we will be holding an open mic night at Motley Bauhaus in Week 12. As always, feel free to email us at any time with your questions, queries, concerns, or triumphs! Stay Creative, Savier and Abbey

Education Academic | Taj Takahashi and Mary Kin Chan

FREE BBQ LUNCH IN WEEK 12

100% VEGAN, HALAL, KOSHER

SATAY, SAUSAGES AND SCHNITZELS

(that’s it sorry guys my essay is giving me a literal crisis)

Education Public | Carlos Lagos Martin

Ed Pub has been busy—we've finalised our submission to the Universities Accord and we've coordinated a Student Solidarity Campaign with the NTEU industrial action. More to come!

Environment | Emma Dynes and James Gallagher

There’s a serious crisis facing students in this country. We have an out-of-control rental market, an education system forcing millions into debt, and a welfare system that keeps students in poverty. We also have a government that does nothing except help the rich get richer.

So the Environment Department has been part of two campaigns recently. On May Day we organised a student protest against the cost of living crisis, calling to tax the rich! And we’ve been part of the student solidarity campaign with the NTEU staff at UniMelb who are striking for better pay and conditions.

Welfare | Yashica Mishra and Ishita Ganeriwala

The Welfare Department has been making great strides to enhance the student experience at the University. We’re excited to announce that we are going strong with our multicuisine Welfare Brunches aimed at providing healthy food and a safe and welcoming space for students to connect with each other. Additionally, we have planned more events throughout the semester, designed to bring the student community together and provide them with the resources they need to thrive.

Our team has been working tirelessly to ensure the reopening of Union House is a success, collaborating closely with the Union Mart team to ensure everything is in place for a smooth reopening. The student volunteers we have recruited to help with these initiatives are integral to their success, and we are grateful for their support and dedication.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Written by Alain Nguyen, Chelsea Daniel and Josh Davis

Sara Pheasant Appointed New UMSU CEO

Former Inner Melbourne Community Legal executive Sara Pheasant has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), fifteen months after the departure of longtime former CEO Justin Baré in late 2021.

Pheasant has a background in the community, arts, and higher eduecation sectors, having previously worked as the Executive Director of Orchestra Victoria and currently serving as Chair of the Melbourne Women in Film Festival. She has also held previous roles as both an adviser to the Victoria University chancellery, and as the Advocacy Manager of the Graduate Student Association at the University of Melbourne.

Pheasant is only the third (we think—there's an interesting feature of that era called MUSUL that makes it difficult to verify) CEO of UMSU since its founding in 2005, with former CEO Baré holding the position for over fifteen years. Phoebe Churches, UMSU's Acting CEO since Baré's departure, has now returned to her previous role as Manager of Advocacy & Legal.

Students' Council Votes Against Opening New Club Affiliations in Semester 2

A motion to reopen new club affiliations for Semester 2 was voted down by the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Students' Council in its 21 April meeting despite mounting criticism from some existing club and society executives.

This comes after repeated discussions in Council highlighting the under-recoursed nature of the Clubs and Societies (C&S) Department, with claims that the C&S is unable to provide “proper” support to new clubs for lack of resources.

The motion, moved by English and Theatre Society President Aurora Carli, stated that "the supporting and development of new clubs and societies is a perpetual requirement under the UMSU Constitution.”

C&S Officer Kimmy Ng, in response

to the motion, said that C&S "understand[s] how important clubs are, and as a department, we really want new clubs. We wish we had the resourses to provide that”.

Former Acting CEO Phoebe Churches cited funding as a contributing factor to C&S' struggles. “We lost about $3 million from pre-Covid. When we’re looking at resoursing, it is not as simple as just paying more staff. We have to increase efficiency and productivity.”

Despite blocking the motion, Students' Council did not explicitly rule out the possibility of reopening club affiliations in Semester 2, instead passing a counter-motion to undertake a review of' resourcing and staffing levels to "address and assess the ability of C&S to take new affiliations."

Melbourne Overtakes Sydney as Australia's Largest City

Melbourne has officially overtaken Sydney as the largest city in Australia...

Well, technically.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Melbourne has overtaken Sydney in one metric used to define a city's size.

Turnitin Launches AI-detection Tool to Combat ChatGPT Use

To combat AI-generated assessments by students, plagiarism detection program

Turnitin has launched an artificial intelligence detection tool, active from 5 April 2023.

Turnitin claims its new AI tool will show “an overall percentage of the document that may have been AI-generated” with

The “significant urban area” measure defines a city’s boundary as an area with a contiguous urban population above 10,000.

With the corridor stretching out from the western suburbs growing in size as of the 2021 census, Melton has been absorbed into Melbourne proper, meaning

“98% confidence”. The overall percentage is 40% or more.

This change comes amid fears that programs like ChatGPT will have more students generate written coursework, like essays or short answer responses, using AI.

While some claim this helps their learning, programs like Chat GPT have been reported to generate false references and sources which can be easily verified when marking essays.

The University of Melbourne, which has adopted the new AI-detection tool, says

the city's significant urban area now has 18,000 more people than Sydney.

Such a measurement will likely result in confusion, and media sources have been quick to jump on the news as a way to stoke the age-old rivalry between the two cities.

that “should there be a suspicion [that an assessment has been] produced using generative AI,” students will need to “explain [their] essay and argument” or provide proof of planning via drafts or notes.

Students cannot see the AI-generated mark in the inbuilt submissions window in Canvas, unlike the plagiarism mark Turnitin provides.

Not all tools used to improve or assist with work will be flagged. The AI-generated Turnitin report will not include referencing software or grammar-checking programs.

Seven students suspended, but no action on clubs or colleges: University of Melbourne releases 2022 Sexual Misconduct Report

Written by Chelsea Daniel

The University of Melbourne has released their 2022 Sexual Misconduct Report, revealing that four staff members have been removed from the University after being found to have committed serious misconduct, but the report remains absent of any actions to combat sexual assault in clubs and residential colleges.

The report follows the release of the 2021 National Student Safety Survey (NSSS), which found Clubs and Societies events and residential colleges to be significant areas where sexual misconduct occurs, by almost a year.

The NSSS delivered a quantitative and qualitative report on the experience and prevalence of sexual assault and sexual harassment on campuses across the country. A random sample of 9,992 University of Melbourne students were asked to complete the survey, with 1,481 students responding.

University of Melbourne Provost Nicola Phillips said the 2022 Sexual Misconduct Report, now in its second year, aims to “help build trust in our systems and processes to eradicate this issue from our University community.”

In a 20 March press release, the University outlined actions taken against perpetrators of sexual misconduct in 2022. Seven students were suspended and four staff members left the University after being found to have committed sexual misconduct.

Disclosing the outcome of these complaints has been described by the University as part of their “ongoing commitment to transparency.”

The Sexual Misconduct Report noted that 90 per cent of complaints made were by a female complainant against a male respondent, with the majority of claims being substantiated. 70 per cent of complainants were students, and 20 per cent were members of staff.

11 sexual misconduct complaints were made against a respondent who was a staff member; in these instances, one of the possible listed “corrective actions” was for the staff member to make an apology to the complainant.

The report does not specify what factors cause findings of misconduct to result in an apology rather than termination of employment or other more severe penalties.

Speaking to Farrago, The University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Women’s Officers found the report's framing “disappointing”.

“It's great to see the University putting more effort into this... but it would have been nice to see the things UMSU and [its] working groups have put together in this report as well,” said Alessandra Soliven.

This includes submissions into the University’s review of the Student Complaints and Grievances process, and issues raised by UMSU's Sexual Assault and Harassment Working Group.

The Women's Officers noted that the exclusion of these submissions was particularly disappointing, as many discussions the working group raised were about the effects sexual assault and harassment has on specific university communities, like the Clubs and Societies program.

These concerns reflect the findings of the 2021 NSSS, which found that 39.7 per cent of harassment occurred in “general campus areas”, 16.2 per cent of harassment occurred at Clubs and Societies events, and 10.9 per cent in campus libraries.

56.1 per cent of victim-survivors knew the perpetrators beforehand.

The NSSS did not specify how many of the “general campus areas” were residential colleges; however in a Farrago article last year, an anonymous contributor highlighted the specific prevalence of sexual assault in a college environment, sharing their personal account.

The Sexual Misconduct Report instead focuses on the broader “university community”, a concept also referenced in the Respect Action Plan and other preventative measures the University is implementing to varying degrees of success.

One of these measures, held as part of the Respect at Uni Week event, included providing students with a free sausage in return for signing their full name on a large prop sign that read “‘I pledge to obtain consent.”

Photography by Akash Anil Nair

Content Warning: References to sexual assault, sexual harassment

“It has felt deliberately slow”: University staff strike for secure work, fair pay as enterprise bargaining stalls

Selina Zhang

This piece originally appeared online on 9 May 2023.

Hundreds of staff from the University of Melbourne walked off the job for a half-day strike on Wednesday 3 May, calling for better pay and job security amid protracted negotiations over a new employment contract.

In the tertiary sector’s largest industrial campaign since 2019, staff and students congregated at the University's Parkville campus, before marching towards Trades Hall and the Eight-Hour Day Monument, where they were joined by fellow

They vocalised frustrations over wage theft, unsustainable workloads, and forced redundancies.

"That work isn't being done by anyone formally, so [it] kind of becomes a wage theft issue as well."

"People work on weekends and after-hours, that's the only way things get done," said Emma Randles, a graduate project officer in Chancellery’s Research and Enterprise division.

"The main claim I'm fighting for is the end of endless restructures... people getting moved out of work, but no one else is taking over because the University hasn't organised someone else," said Grady

Negotiations over a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) have been underway since early 2022, after the last agreement expired in November 2021.

According to the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), the University has ignored a list of key claims for fairer work standards in the upcoming contract.

Written by

staff from Deakin, Monash, La Trobe and Federation universities.

Fitzpatrick, head tutor in the Faculty of Engineering and IT.

These include improved parental leave, a pay raise in line with inflation, flexible working arrangements, restrictions on rolling restructures, more manageable workloads, and for at least 80 per cent of the workforce to be employed in ongoing positions.

Two of these claims—an 80 per cent secure work target and reduced workloads—were highlighted by the NTEU as necessary to address systemic wage theft across the tertiary sector.

"So far the bargaining process has been very slow... and it has felt deliberately slow," said David Gonzalez, University of Melbourne NTEU Branch Secretary.

"We've done everything we can to advance the process, and bring our members' concerns to management... and [it's] been sometimes

weeks, months later that we even hear anything back."

In a statement to Farrago, the University maintained it was engaging productively with the union.

"Our objective is to work collaboratively and constructively with the unions to reach a new enterprise agreement that is fair to all, recognises the value and contribution that all staff members make... [and] positions the University for longterm sustainability and success," its spokesperson said.

But after sector-wide wage theft scandals across Australia—with the University of Melbourne at the centre—some staff are urging for government intervention to reform the tertiary workforce model.

"Change has to come much higher up for it to have a proper impact...

systems have to change so that universities are forced to behave in a different way," said one library staff member.

"You're pushing shit uphill if you're trying to get each enterprise agreement changed to get better, specific conditions," she continued.

As for the current EBA, staff say further industrial action is likely, to ensure their demands are met.

"Whether that's an ongoing strike, a 24-hour strike, a weekly strike, or an indefinite strike," said Emily Kaji, a casual assistant at the University's Baillieu Library.

"Whatever it takes, to make sure management comes to the table with a reasonable agreement."

Photography by Eldon Lee and Ha Khoa Dang

A richer student experience, but for who? The discriminatory effects of the removal of dual delivery

Written by Hannah Vandenbogaerde

With the days of strict lockdowns and cautious safety measures seemingly behind us, the University of Melbourne has implemented a return to full on-campus learning for all undergraduate and most postgraduate courses.

For many students, however, this is still not possible; they have spoken out about the difficulties of returning to campus, and their need for online teaching options.

On campus-teaching stopped at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 to avoid further spreading of the virus. However, as the pandemic continued and lockdowns were lifted, the University gradually returned to providing more on-campus options, creating a hybrid teaching system called “dual-delivery’’ where students studying the same unit could choose between online or on-campus classes.

The dual-delivery system remained an option into the 2022 academic year, but was scheduled to be scrapped for undergraduate students at the start of the first semester of 2023.

Hiba Adam, President of theUniversity of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) said this was an essential accessibility issue as dual delivery improves access to education for those who are unable to attend classes on-campus.

According to Adam, a lot of students discovered the advantages of the dual-delivery system during the pandemic, with it appearing to be a potential ongoing option to help students who encounter obstacles to attending campus every day.

Consequently, UMSU and UMSU International organised a petition last semester rallying for the dual delivery system to remain as a permanent fixture.

Despite receiving a high number of signatures, the petition did not have much success, as the University believes on-campus attendance and campus life should be prioritised in order to create a successful student experience.

“We are in week one of the start of our academic year and continue to welcome all our students back to our campuses, so they can engage with the whole University community and make the most of all that campus life has to offer”, a University of Melbourne spokesperson said.

Adam said that UMSU believed this approach was unfair to international students stuck abroad and local students who are facing other obstacles to attending campus.

“They should also have the option to not miss out on their education, and not feel like they have to catch up,” she said.

One of those local students is J, a third year psychology student. He suffers from multiple chronic health conditions that impact his heart and immune system. The symptoms of this health condition, and his fear of the severe impacts that the still-prevalent COVID-19 virus would have on his body if he were to catch it, make it difficult for him to travel to campus and are negatively impacting his studies.

With the removal of dual-delivery, he says he feels like “the University has disregarded [student] safety”.

Another student who did not wish to be named, in her second year of a Media and Communications major, spoke to Farrago about her struggles with juggling work and studies.

For monetary reasons, she aimed to pursue a double major, a study load which she could only fit around her work schedule through the added flexibility of online dual-delivery classes.

As a result of the University abandoning dual delivery, she had to drop one of her majors.

“So essentially, I’m gonna be undertrained, which is really frustrating,” she said.

She described the option of online classes as very important to ensure all students are able to continue their studies.

“The removal of dual delivery is making higher education less accessible.”

“Tertiary education is already one of the most inaccessible pursuits in this country, in both a monetary and educational sense, and this is just driving the stakes further,” she said.

In response to Farrago’s enquiries, a University of Melbourne spokesperson stated that it is possible for students in these situations to make adjustments “on a case-by-case basis”.

“We recommend students to review our student support page for more information.”

However, both students interviewed pointed out difficulties in getting this support from the University.

J recounted that he tried to reach out to Student Equity and Disability Services, Stop 1 and individual subject professors about this issue, without much success.

“It’s basically just telling us, ‘you’re being punished for not conforming to society’s standards, for not trying hard enough.’”

When asked about further actions, Hiba Adam said that she felt the University was set on its decision.

“There is nothing further that we [UMSU] will be doing. We’ve done the petitions, we’ve rallied people, we’ve spoken multiple times to the University but they are very set on in-person, campus-based education.”

“[Dual delivery] will be on a case-by-case basis. That is the best deal we are able to get out of it.”

The American private equity giant buying up our local pubs

Written by Joel Duggan

Have you noticed that something hasn’t quite been the same about your favourite pubs since the pandemic? Perhaps the pints are costlier, the menu has changed, the staff’s smiles appear forced and there’s a certain soulless swankiness pervading the room? Chances are that the pub has been quietly snapped up by new owners.

It goes without saying that COVID-19 was rough on hospo. The sector’s revenue took a massive hit, with dozens of venues going under. Yet, pubs appeared to have made a pretty good recovery. Investment is rushing in—$2 billion of it, to be exact—and it seems like things are stabilising.

At least, that’s what it seems like. The investment numbers obscure a darker reality: many of these pubs were killed by COVID-19 and now corporate investors are parading their corpses around like it’s Weekend at Bernie’s.

Biggest of the bunch is AVC—the Australian Venue Company. In only six years, AVC have gone from owning a single pub to being a ubiquitous presence nationwide, owning over 200 venues.

Even if you haven’t heard the name, you’ve probably been to one of their 30 Melbourne pubs. From the whitewashed facades of St Kilda's waterfront Espy, to charming, inner-city taprooms such as the Provincial, Posty and Crafty

Squire, AVC has disguised its meteoric, short-term rise by affiliating itself with the legacies of Melbourne's pub stalwarts. The company is valued at $1.32 billion as of 2021 and is continuing to scale up operations at wild speeds.

At the crux of AVC's raging success lies its so-called "local-first approach" to venue management, a community-centric mantra which, while ostensibly innocuous, couldn't be more tactical. A patina of faux-hipsterdom might develop, but the commercial ethos is predicated on keeping the general vibe, so that not much changes on the surface.

The veneer of “cool, local business” belies the fact that AVC is majority owned by KKR & Co Inc., an American global investment company with hands in private equity, energy, infrastructure and hedge funds.

Obviously, it’s not great that our supposedly swanky, authentic, and local inner-city watering-holes are run by a foreign multinational. But if they really do “create exceptional customer experiences while delivering unbeatable value and maintaining high-quality standards,” then is it that big of a deal?

Shocker: there’s more to the story than what they’re letting on.

For one thing, “unbeatable value” feels like a misnomer when there’s AVC venues you can walk into and expect to be paying almost $30 for a parma.

Or when you realise that you’re paying upwards of $20 for cocktails that, according to current and former staff, a number of their venues premix—even the negronis! AVC are trying to have it both ways: marketing themselves as a first-rate dining experience and pricing accordingly, while cutting corners in the production of such an experience.

Overpricing may be a cardinal pub sin, but it pales in comparison to how staff report being treated at AVC venues. There are the small things: no more knock-offs or staff discounts, for one—a prohibition which, in the words of a current AVC bartender, “goes against the spirit of hospo”. Yet, the problems go a lot deeper.

“AVC preys on their young staff, most of whom are uni students just trying to earn a living in a hospo job,” said one ex-AVC bartender.

“While I was still working there as a casual Level 2 bartender, I noticed my pay checks had no night penalty rates listed on them. I know some of my other co-workers had gone and contested their paychecks, but nothing ever came back from them. Only a few months ago, I received an email that stated I had been paid incorrectly. Bearing in mind, I quit AVC in March 2022.”

Contrary to what they advertise, this same ex-AVC bartender also alleges that the company failed to adhere to COVID-Safe rules.

“In December 2021, mid-service, one of my co-workers tested positive. They were on shift at the time, complained they felt sick and so did a COVID-19 test to be on the safe side. Because we were understaffed at this point, all of us had come into contact with them for more than two hours, making us all official close contacts. However, we were all told to keep working and just forget about the positive case.

“I told one of my managers I didn’t feel comfortable working, and I wanted to go get tested. I left work early. I tested positive two days later. Within the next two weeks, basically every member of staff tested positive. Who knows how many customers did as well?”

Yet, what remains most disconcerting is the systemic issue that the ascendancy of AVC represents: locally-owned hospo venues being forced to sell because they lack the support to survive. Melbourne talks a big game as a city about loving the pub, but there’s a passive ignorance to the policy failure unravelling before everybody’s eyes: the industry is so destabilised that there’s increasingly only room for these oligopolistic corporate giants.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a city changing: not every pub needs to last forever. But what AVC’s growing prominence reflects is a society which wasn’t able to protect its own and is now ceding more and more ground to the homogenising facelessness and rampant exploitation of the multinational corporation. If we keep it up, then the future looks like overpriced pints in bars with brick walls forever.

Illustration by Alexi O'Keefe

Written by the Satire Team

Cardboard Cutout of Frank Ocean to be Used for Second

Coachella Performance, Says Representative

Written by Alexia Shaw

After disastrous scenes at Ocean’s first headline Coachella show saw the artist caught lip-syncing (after starting his set an hour late), Ocean has chosen not to attend his second performance at all. Instead, a cardboard cutout of the star is expected to be placed on stage while a non-premium Spotify playlist of his least popular songs plays through the speaker of an iPod touch.

We asked Ocean for further clarification on his new set up, but the singer kept mum on the matter. Though that may be because our interviewee was also a cardboard cutout, since Ocean didn’t rock up to our interview on time either

Student Severely Underloads

Written by Alexia Shaw

The annual BABBA performance at the Parkville campus is perhaps the most important event in the entire UniMelb social calendar, something well known to commerce student Bobby Sprocket.

Sprocket is now in the 9th year of his undergraduate degree, having stretched out his studies to attend as many BABBA concerts as possible.

Taking only half a subject a semester, Sprocket spends the rest of his time memorising the entirety of ABBA’s back catalogue so that he can sing along word-for-word to every song BABBA performs.

“You are the dancing queeeeeen” sings Sprocket, moshing along to the music. He takes out an unsuspecting first year with his aggressive moves, but as a man who lives for this moment, he cannot and will not be stopped.

Boyfriends

All Over the Nation Cop Serious Abuse After Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn’s Split

Written by Alexia Shaw

How can anyone believe in love now that the famous duo have called it quits on their six year relationship?

This is the crisis that white women everywhere aged 15-29 are currently grappling with, as no boyfriend is safe from suspicion.

“I’ve been on edge ever since the news broke,” said Jack Lipschitz, a local boyfriend.

“My girlfriend has been listening to the ten minute version of All Too Well on repeat for the past week and every time I tell her I love her she just hisses, I’m worried.”

Godspeed to all the boyfriends going through this difficult time.

Illustration by Nina Hughes

Full 1L Frank Green Drink Bottle Breaks the Sound Barrier.

Written by Charlotte

A University of Melbourne student is being hailed a “scientific miracle” after her beloved Frank Green drink bottle created what experts are calling a “sonic boom”.

However, when interviewing the students who were present at the time of the event, they appeared less enthusiastic about the ordeal. “My ears will never recover. No one should ever have to hear the metal-on-metal clang of one of those drink bottles. I’m looking into counselling as we speak.”

The drink bottle, which fell down the central staircase at Arts West last Monday afternoon, is now being showcased at the George Paton Gallery until the end of semester.

Woman Debates Whether Dating Lynx Body Spray Incarnate is Worth the Inability to Breathe.

Written by Charlotte

Though everything initially seemed perfect, the 22-year-old (who wishes to remain anonymous) told Farrago that she should’ve seen this coming because “no red flags is a red flag.”

Not long into the interview, the woman was forced to use her asthma puffer. It was at this point that she revealed that the nightmare is in fact just beginning:

“It’s all over my own clothes. I’m too scared to go out or else I’d have to explain to every person I encounter that it’s not my fault that their eyes are watering. He is a really lovely guy though… at least, that’s the impression I get of him underneath the miasma.”

Upon concluding the interview, the woman decided that her date could be a classic case of a “dude in distress” that needs her help, and feels a strong sense of duty to stick by her man.

Mate Suddenly Remembers he’s a St Kilda Supporter in Response to Their Position 3rd on the Ladder.

Written by Charlotte

The man, who introduced himself as “Nick, like Nick Riewoldt”, hasn’t attended a St Kilda game since the controversial final against Collingwood in 2010. Even so, he insists the past is in the past.

“I think it’s going to be a really great season for the boys, I can feel it.” Not everyone is on board with his sudden footy-loving renaissance. One housemate described Nick’s jersey as “mummified” from years of neglect in the attic, with a stench “so rank” that it has permeated through the whole flat.

Nick’s other housemate echoed these thoughts, describing it as a “crusty and musty” environment to be in. Despite their grievances, Nick remains completely oblivious, and is set to create a ‘‘Housemate Betting’’ WhatsApp chat to really “get into the team spirit.” Farragowishes you luck, Nick.

Ending With a Bang(ing Your Head on Your Pillow)

Written by Julie/Jules Song

Well folks, it is now Week 9 of the semester, and needless to say, the feeling of dying inside is in everyone. Your new best friends are No Doz, V, Red Bull, Monster Energy, and your preferred food delivery app.

But don’t you worry, because the University cares about you! That’s why you now have four assignments due within the last three weeks of the semester. Extra pressure means good practice for that time management skill of yours.

Be sure to bring your own Keep Cup, because 30 cents off per cup of coffee will help you save a lot of money, and you’ll need it to buy the midnight oil you’re about to burn. cause you need that saved money to pay that midnight oil).

Remember this — Ps get degrees, and ten hours late receives the same penalty as one hour.

A Brief and Incomplete History of Love Letters

Written by Elizabeth Browne

The oldest surviving love letter in the English language dates back to Valentine’s Day, 1477, in which a besotted Margery Brews woefully and anxiously describes to her fiancé, John Pastona, her failed attempts to increase her dowry. Downcast and yearnful, she begs him to accept her anyway:

“But if you love me, as I trust verily that you do, you will not leave me therefore… My heart me bids evermore to love you truly over all earthly things.”

From what we know, the story has a happy ending: the two married and bore a son who helped pull the family out of peasantry by serving in the court of the infamous Henry VIII.

The original transcript of Margaret’s writing is practically unintelligible to the modern eye. The script is looped and messy, having been written in an egregiously cursive style, and is markedly informal with a few personal confessions and even several spelling errors. The actual language is barely English, at least not as we would recognise today, and the paper upon which it has been written is barely even paper; it’s disintegrating, brown and stained.

Yet, it is Margaret’s desperation and yearning for a love so tenuous and fragile that still feels so modern even 500 years later. And it is this seemingly universal desire to capture such intense emotions through the mechanism of literature which has transcended the realms of time itself.

In the time since, love letters seem to be a form of expression which people of all ages, gender, sexuality and status have continually turned in order to manifest their affection into words.

From queer icons such as Emily Dickinson…

“Susie, forgive me Darling… my heart is full of you, none other than you is in my thoughts, yet when I seek to say to you something not for the world, words fail me... If you were here— and Oh that you were, my Susie, we need not talk at all, our eyes would whisper for us…”

… and Oscar Wilde….

“My Own Boy… it is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing.”

… to infamously turbulent couples such as Hollywood starlets

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor…

“My blind eyes are desperately waiting for the sight of you. You don’t realise of course, E.B., how fascinatingly beautiful you have always been, and how strangely you have acquired an added and special and dangerous loveliness.” (Burton to Taylor)

… and Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe…

“Please, if I’ve ever made you cry, or made you even sadder, ever for a second, please forgive me, my perfect girl. I love you.” (Miller to Monroe)

… and famous 20th-century writers Zelda Fitzgerald and F. Scott Fitzgerald…

“Darling—I love these velvet nights…. I love you most in the eternal classic half-lights where it blends with day or in the full religious fanfare of mid-night or perhaps in the lux of noon.” (Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald)

There seems to be this perennial obsession with love-letters that continually draws us back in, even centuries later. There is an innate vulnerability and nakedness to them that is so rare, and therefore entrancing, particularly in this modern age where technology and social media renders so much superficial and false.

Yet, as times have changed, so too have love letters. With paper writing becoming gradually obsolete in this technological era, lovelorn individuals have turned to online forums to express their yearning, most notably through the University of Melbourne’s very own Unimelb Love Letters (UMLL) Facebook page. Delivering dozens of posts, some romantic, some ‘shit-posts’, to its 70,000 followers daily, students have now been given a new medium to fuel their inner hopeless romantic.

However, does this new means of expression capture the same vulnerability, the same raw emotion that makes receiving a traditional love letter so enthralling? Or does the guise of anonymity and the inevitably superficial quality of writing to a stranger eliminate its very essence?

On one hand, it's easy to point to the less romantic posts like…

“#42855

She’s a 10 but she talks in a British accent ironically at random times.” … or the other comically vague letters dedicated to ‘that girl with the jumper last Thursday’ or ‘the guy with headphones on the tram’ and make the sweeping generalisation that love is simply dead, and that technology is the one with blood on its hands. And yes, the reality is that the public nature of these posts mean they may lose some of the traditional form’s intimacy. However, when one wades through enough of them, there is eventually a glimmer of the original magic, of Margery’s yearning all those years ago.

“#40660

Heart reacted to an anonymous love letter back in 2018, didn't get a response from OP until 2 months later, then when he finally messaged he turned out to be the last person I would've guessed to have a crush on me! Before then we've only said hi and bye after we did one prac class together in a group of 5! Just got engaged to this lovely guy last weekend! Thanks UMLL!”

Even if online posts can’t quite capture the same essence as traditional love letters, they are still a manifestation of the same emotion; the universal yearning for love and connection. And, if we aren’t putting pen to paper anymore, is this not the next best thing?

I mperfect m oments in t ime

Written by Claudia Goundar

Film photography has drawn a growing amount of interest amongst Generation Z and, with the vibrant diffusion of disposables and shiny point-and-shoots fished from eclectic nooks and crannies, has become a trend. Its popularity can perhaps be attributed to its grainy, antiquated look and ability to capture a vast colour gamut that reminds us of our parents’ photo album from the 1970s. However, beneath the visually attractive aesthetics of film photos lies something far more profound.

Both transient and timeless, film photography is a paradox. As an amateur film photographer, I rarely capture two photos of the same moment to achieve the ‘perfect shot’—something we have become attuned to do with mobile photography—as I am limited to 24-35 frames; given how costly it is to purchase and develop film, it would be a waste (if you ask me). Since there is a small window to capture that one moment, taking the photo itself is ultimately fleeting (I mean they are called point-and-shoot cameras nowadays), allowing us to be deliberate and intentional when photographing. Yet, simultaneously, these images become eternal, not only due to their vintage appearance, but because, when used intentionally, they distil precious moments into a single frame that later induces emotions, memories and that peculiar yearning we call nostalgia. As a result, the significance and story behind film photos are more important than its aesthetic quality.

Film photography consistently produces unexpected outcomes as each shot is a unique reflection of time, and the photographer’s place in its unstoppable spill. It is unpredictable; often it doesn’t turn out precisely how you would like it to; but those imperfections add character, an idiosyncrasy that mobile photography just cannot match. There is an anticipation and mystery that exists between the moment the picture is shot and the moment it is developed. You are greeted with a pleasant surprise of ‘omg remember that’ or ‘I don’t even remember taking that!’. We essentially are compelled to live in the moment; we are not entitled to instant gratification or the chance to get distracted by tweaking photos like we can with digitals. Therefore, the focus shifts from fixating on perfectionism to focusing more on capturing a sincere moment for film photographers who aren’t concerned with a photo’s technical features.

My great aunt gave me her film camera which she bought in Italy, a camera that captured many special moments in her young life. In a sense, using her film camera while I lived in Italy connected me to her younger self, making me feel nostalgic as I imagined what her life was like before she came to Australia. Ultimately, while film photography has recently piqued a degree of users, perhaps for aesthetic purposes rather than for a sheer joy of photography, film is a powerful tool that provides a fulfilling experience and enables us to detach from the unrealistic expectations of mobile photography.

Illustration by Tina Tao

There Is Something In The Water The Gnasher of Teeth

Written by Donna Ferdinando

The wielders of a hacksaw, a chainsaw, a knife, a bullet-barrelling shotgun, a mace, a saber, a sword and a particularly solid baseball bat wields them not with the grace and elegance of seasoned shooting range visitors or knife throwing aficionados. Rather, the large majority of weapons are wielded by those accustomed to handling them from circumstances borne of entirely separate contexts.

A knife to flick bits of bone out of the flesh of fish suddenly becomes in the calloused hand a brilliant object to embed within an intruder’s skull. That baseball bat only ever used for impromptu games in a scraggly backyard transforms into a lance, if one can converge enough power, luck and sheer force of will into the act. That makeup brush, so often used to mask the translucency of one’s eyelids with gold, can prove very vicious when buried deep in a swiveling eyeball.

Ordinary objects in ordinary hands transform into instruments of destruction and injury, producers of screams, yelps and strings of words coloured like stains on a moldy carpet.

The common denominator for this sudden transformation, this metamorphosis, this defiance of mundanity and morality, is rage. Not anger; anger is too light a word. Anger is an argument with flying hands and fluttering fingers and minced words that simmer down once the heat is sucked out of the room. Wrath doesn’t fit either; it’s too heavy a word. Wrath implies a flood breaking free of riptides, currents and gravity. It implies revenge on a committed act. It is an entity separate from its origin, the figure inflicting its destruction on the victim. If destructive enough, the instigator of wrath may skip away blameless with the old adage, “I don’t know what happened. I lost control."

Rage, however, festers. It is calculated. It is vengeful. The reach for the knife is a deliberate move. One knows the repercussions of one’s actions. One comprehends the implications of the act. Yet, one does not care. Apathy sprouts and spores along wrath’s arteries and it is more a welcome visitor than unwelcome parasite.

Ti West’s Pearl (Mia Goth in all her gothic glory) takes a rake to her lover (her ex-lover, rather). His rejection is the tipping point of a life spent under the domineering, peering, sneering eye of a mother. A mother who, incidentally, has imposed a predetermined plan for how her daughter was to spend the rest of her days. Her father provides no defense—mute and paralysed as he is. Isolated on a farm with seldom stimulation, Pearl’s lover is her ticket out; an escape to stardom, fame, love, attention, adventure, intrigue, independence and a life. Small wonder, then, that the minute her lover retracts his affections, she is left confused. Small wonder that, in depending upon his choices and affections, in watching that dependence be ripped away before her eyes, her rage takes over. Her grabbing that rake was deliberate, and so was chasing his car down, and sticking the rake’s prongs through his jugular, and later turning his body to the whims of her pet crocodile.

And, if the trending TikTok sound from Paris Paloma’s newest single ‘Labour’, doesn’t speak of and for rage itself, then one’s senses are truly blocked with copious amounts of cotton swabs. Sure, the lyrics are merely expressing that rage, but the vibrant bass, the rapid guitar strings and the layered yells and melodies; the image of Paloma smearing food across her mouth and chin in petty defiance of decorum, is reminiscent of Judith slicing through Holofernes head, of Susannah railing against her assailants, of any frustrated figure gnashing their teeth in silence. Judith knew what she was doing when she slit Holofernes’s throat, and her rage—rage put to good use. Saved her people. Saved her autonomy and identity.

Rage is mostly awful, but sometimes benevolent in the most morally grey manner possible. A parent commits murder for their child. Who would fault them? A young woman claws her rapist’s skin, eyes, scalp, throat, and who would fault her? A friend would rather go to prison for defending his colleague than to stay silent. Really, who could fault his rage? Far beyond the binaries of black and white does rage lie, and quite frankly I find comfort and contentment in its stolid, charming, stormy shade of grey.

Illustration by Thao Duyen (Jennifer) Nguyen

Wolfgang Beltracchi and how he fooled the art world

Written by Kien-Ling Liem

It is 2004, and American comedian Steve Martin has just bought a painting by Heinrich Campendonk for a sweet 850,000 USD. Martin flaunts the picture to his peers. He can now participate in the academic jargon of the art industry, an elite circle with convoluted ins and outs (the ‘in’ being, of course, the price of a large house).

Martin has made it—until it comes out that German artist Wolfgang Beltracchi has forged hundreds of paintings, including this Campendonk, rendering it a fake and becoming one of the most successful art scammers of the century.

All status is lost. Shame betrothed Martin’s name, and embarrassment tied the knot.

Beltracchi and his partner Helene are a pair of artists and art forgers (can you be both? Does artistry depend on originality?) who have admitted to forging hundreds of paintings which they sold under the pretence of being originals. These are not copies— Beltracchi invents new works that do not exist, but are imaginings of what the artist might have painted, and sells them for as much as 5 million euros. They have scammed millions from the elite art industry and its too-rich-for-their-own-good participants. But in 2010, Beltracchi fatally used a white titanium paint that was not present in the era of the artist he was forging. He was caught, and then sentenced to six years in prison.

What I love about Beltracchi’s scam is how well he exposes the art industry. His work hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum and has appeared in art books naming the most influential paintings of the 20th century. For years, he fooled everyone. Nobody doubted him.

In an interview with CBS News, Beltracchi opened up about his artistic forging process. He refers to himself and Helene as the “Bonnie and Clyde” of the industry.

“Without weapons. Only with pencils.”

The art was never real. Yet the elite still bought them and talked about them and showed them off like they were. When it was revealed that they were fake, the paintings lost all of their historical value, a value that was not necessarily assigned by price, but rather by status. In the split second they were revealed as fakes, they lost all meaning. To owners of Beltracchi’s imitations: what was the difference from when you weren’t aware it was a fake? You valued it as an elite part of your collection, even though it virtually meant nothing. The only difference is—you know now.

What does this say about the art industry and its capitalist, luxury-driven motives? That they’re a scam, obviously. But more importantly, what does this say about the appreciation of art? Does the fact that they are fake change how we appreciate it?

No amount of money can express true valuation of a work of art. Art is not about status or money or grandeur. In fact, some would argue that it’s the complete opposite, but capitalism with its grey grinding wheels has run us into the ground. Art is tangible, but appreciation is apparently monetary. And because we have lost the capacity to actually appreciate something without throwing money at it, the art industry, like all else, has been poisoned with capitalism. The art industry has become a strip club. Picasso is a stripper and he berates himself for even an inch of a dollar—that’s the only way he knows he’s loved, even from the grave.

The exposé of Beltracchi shows us how fragile artistic status is. Once exposed as fake, Martin immediately sold his piece and the industry went into immediate shock. Today, art authenticators are still afraid to publicly affirm the credibility of a work of art in fear of legal reparations. But what is brilliant about art and its large theoretical loopholes is that even though the works are deemed fake, this does not mean they do not have value or meaning anymore. It just changes their meaning. In fact, it can add status, but a different kind. Imagine owning a work by the infamous Wolfgang Beltracchi, the man who blinded the art industry and made it trip over its own feet!

In some ways Beltracchi is the art industry’s hero. He crippled them, exploited them and exposed them, and the irony is that he does not care. He is playing the capitalist game. The value of art and how we ‘should’ value it is still an open question. Is it the history, culture, time that is crystallised in a piece of art, its message, social commentary, or just its aesthetic that we can appreciate?

Beltracchi tells me that it does not really matter.

Interviewer: Do you think you did anything wrong?

Beltracchi: Yes, I used the wrong titanium white, yeah.

Research:

The Con Artist: A multimillion dollar art scam https://www.cbsnews.com/news/art-forger-wolfgang-beltracchis-multimillion-dollar-scam/#:~:text=At%20his%20trial%20in%202011,and%20the%20numbers%20keep%20climbing.

Illustration by Jacques CA

It Was

A (Bitter)Sweet Affliction As

Just like Chet, I fall in love too easily.

It’s been a running joke, about how I fall in “love” with a dozen fleeting faces each day, mere passing strangers.

Oh, I can’t help it, each face was crafted by the master’s hand.

A crooked nose? Eyes of porcelain blue? A scar on your cheek? It doesn’t matter. It shouldn't matter.

What is a face if not living proof of a millennia’s worth of work in motion? Perhaps they have their mother's eyes. Maybe the nose of their great-grandfather. Bits and pieces, creating the sum of their parts. All together whole. All together a masterpiece.

Each love story lasts mere seconds. A brief quip to the person I’m with about the stranger’s beauty and I’m content, off to write a new tale of love and woe.

But, oh no, you came around and changed everything. —-

It’s been a long, long time, or so the song goes, since I’ve felt the butterflies float about in my stomach. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt my heartbeat race at the sight of a familiar face.

I’ve always been a hopeless romantic. I’ve watched the movies. I’ve read the novels. My playlists are filled with the sweet sounds of crooners lamenting about love and longing.

Frank sang about it and so did Ella, Judy, Tommy, Glenn, Bing, Billie, Vic, Dick, Dean, Doris, and Dinah. They have all likened this feeling to soft moonbeams, smelling sweetly of magnolias and gardenias, and its sensation clandestine and longing. A feeling, chaste and gentle, tenderly biding its time.

But just as Nat protested, it was only fascination…

I was fascinated by the crinkles by the corners of your eyes. Fascinated by the dimples that cut down your cheeks when you smile. Fascinated by the gaps between your teeth. Fascinated by the furrow of your brows.

I don’t know what or who I expected. Yet here you are. Did it have to be you?

I find it difficult to meet your eye, afraid you’ll find me bewitched, eager to discover what lies beneath the laughter and banter

Little did you know how my heart stood still, with stolen glances and stories from your childhood, I am beguiled.

You’re novel to me, but your roots run deep into the land of your birth. Unassuming and unabashedly as you walk through the paved pathways of the city.

You go to my head, ardent and devout. Oh, how the saints know of your name! Kneeling on the aged wooden pew, somehow you make your way into my prayers. A minor footnote, but there nonetheless.

Like an old spinning record, you are worn, beyond your tender years, yet your soul is young and steadfast. Stubborn and unrelenting. Eager to make a difference and longing for change.

I was content just watching the world pass me by, as the leaves turned from jubilant green to warm brown. But here you are, just a boy, with eyes brown like the generations before you. Brown like the pews that whisper your name. Brown like the faded brogues you wear.

The mundane reminds me of you: from second-hand postcards to the crackle when the needle hits the vinyl. Wilted flowers and lighter flint. Cellulose, knit, and the rumble of coffee machines. These foolish things remind me of you.

In my reverie—I wonder if you know—having a sneaking suspicion of my foolish infatuation.

They say it’s a wonderful feeling, but I could never tell you that. The “if’s” and “but’s” pose too much of a risk. Yet, between the late night conversations and meanderings across the city, a flicker of assumption rests. A spark, they say. An understanding between two friends.

“It’s merely a crush,” I tell myself.

They say fools rush in, but what kind of fool am I?

Illustration by Emma Bui

America Is Banning Books, And We Should All Be Worried

Written by Georgia York

Across America, books are being banned in schools at unprecedented levels. With over 2000 books taken out of libraries and off classroom shelves in the last year alone, the right-wing is pushing an agenda that is having ripple effects across society.

The crackdowns are coming from every angle, parents pushing for books to be removed from libraries at school board meetings, laws being passed that require parents’ permission for the borrowing of certain books and the banning of discussions of sexual identity in school with the so-called Don’t Say Gay Bill. 1 States like Florida and Texas are the worst offenders, but with more state and federal laws in the pipeline the number of book bans is expected to increase in 2023. 2

But why now? Most of the books at the centre of the controversy have been sitting on shelves for decades and the world hasn’t ended.

That’s because it isn’t really about the books. The book bans are symptomatic of a larger cultural conflict in America, as the right-wing attempts to rewrite history and manipulate the present. 3 Nicknamed ‘culture wars’, this ideological clash is the driving force behind restrictions on civil liberties like abortion bans and limits on birth control, or opposition to affirmative action and police reform. Additionally, it is fuelling policy like the hyper-nationalistic responses to global events as well as encouraging media and political sphere’s acceptance of conspiracy theories like the ‘Big Lie’ that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, which led to the violent insurrection attempt at the US Capitol on January 6th , 2021.

This growing movement utilises a conservative echo-chamber that promotes an ideologically sheltered vision of American society under the guise of protecting children.

Much of this centres around a white, Christian and conservative demographic that sees advancements in equality and the growth of a multicultural population as a threat to their way of life. It’s a group that overwhelmingly voted for Trump, identifies as the ‘forgotten Americans‘ and has found solace in the ‘MAGA’ movement that promised to listen to their grievances.

The targets of their historical, cultural and social purge are largely books that tell the stories of marginalised or minority populations, with 41% of the books banned featuring LGBTQ+ themes or protagonists. The second biggest identifier of banned books was protagonists or prominent characters of colour, followed by themes of racism, civil rights or religious minorities. 4

Some of the books being targeted include the memoir How to be Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi, Fun Home: A family tragicomic by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel and Maus by Art Spiegleman, a graphic novel about antisemitism and the Ho-

locaust. Additional targets are classics like Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale which tells the story of a fundamentalist theocratic society not dissimilar to the ideas being expressed by many right-wing state governments in the US.

According to Jonathon Friedman the director of free expression and education at PEN America, this wave of censorship is being nicknamed the ‘Ed Scare’ for it’s similarity to the ‘Red Scare’ of the 1950s. 5

It’s important to recognise that this fearmongering is a means of control, and exerting it over students and curriculums is just one step in the authoritarian playbook. It echoes the actions of dictators like Stalin and Hitler, who notoriously burned books that were viewed as subversive or dangerous to the regime. 6 And while the United States isn’t there yet, it’s a slippery slope.

But there is certainly hope, with students, teachers and authors all fighting back against the challenges to books around the country.

A teacher in Florida was recently fired over a video that he had posted of empty bookshelves in a classroom he was working in, showing how the books had been preemptively removed to be vetted because the school was worried the content could violate Governor DeSantis’s ‘Stop Woke Act’. 7 The law prohibits the discussion of race, religion or sexual orientation in a way that could cause distress to students, which in practice has stopped the teaching of the existence of institutional or structural discrimination and disadvantage. This teacher shared the video to express his concern and sadness about the impacts the policy was having on students and classrooms, and has since been publicly attacked by DeSantis, and gotten death threats from his ardent supporters.

Students are also speaking out in opposition to the bans, with protests staged in response to school board bans being passed, and students speaking out at meetings to argue in favour of keeping books in their libraries. 8

A group of 16 year-olds at Vandegrift High School in Austin, TX have even started the ‘banned book club’, where they read books that have been prohibited at their schools and then meet to discuss them. As their school continues to take books off shelves, the club has started putting out statements on social media about why they believe they should be returned to shelves, sharing what they’ve learned and how they think they are valuable to students 9

Among authors, most prominently, Margret Atwood has voiced her opposition. Publishing an essay in The Atlantic titled ‘Go Ahead and Ban my Book’, she has challenged governments to restrict access to stories in a digital age. In 2022, she announced the creation of an ‘unburnable’ copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, made of entirely fireproof materials to “stand as a powerful symbol against censorship”. 10

What lies ahead for students in America is not straightforward, but as a collision between both sides of the ideological spectrum plays out in classrooms and libraries, it is clear that we need to keep paying attention, and fight back against censorship of stories that matter.

1 https://www.npr.org/2022/04/01/1090211332/dont-say-gay-law-florida-lawsuit-desantis

2 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/24/us-book-bans-streak-of-extremism

3 https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-are-we-protecting-children-from-bybanning-books

4 https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/

5 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-florida-teacher-books-b2285705.html

6 https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning

7 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-florida-teacher-books-b2285705.html

8 https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/1162390594/florida-students-protest-their-school-districtsbook-ban

9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/03/teens-books-ban-clubs-protest/

10 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/24/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-unburnable-edition

Illustration by Indy Smith

Shame and Imposter Syndrome The Writer on Fear,

Written by Sebastian Hugh

It’s a grey morning, the sky wearing an inscrutable cloak of cloud. A woman stands outside a café on Bourke Street, head down. Waiting.

She lifts her head up as I approach. “Are you Seb?” A handshake. A hello. “Yes, Helen?” I ask, or rather, say with bemusement. But of course, I know it’s her. I needn’t ask if she was Helen Garner.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” she says, turning in the direction I previously walked. As Helen leads the way, she explains the change in venue. “I asked the waitress to turn the music down so we could talk, and she said she couldn’t do that. I mean seriously. Fuck off!” I knew this interview would not be a regular conversation with a writer.

I wanted to talk to Helen about imposter syndrome: the queasy feeling of wearing a mask. Helen Garner has become one of Australia’s most significant writers. She is at once a symbol of what so many writers want to achieve. Yet Helen has been open about her reckoning with doubt. She seems to bounce so easily between forms: essay, fiction and non-fiction. Her works sail the duality between large, sweeping themes, and the domestic, the local. The sense of the imposter, the liar and the fraud can be felt in Helen’s work. For so many writers, the feeling of imposter syndrome is stifling. When I sit down with Helen, I want to see whether imposter syndrome had haunted her and how she had overcome it.

For Helen, the sense of insecurity began at university. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do when I left school. In those days, it was assumed girls would do something for a few years, and then have kids and wouldn’t work. When I got to the end of high school, the principal called me in and said, ‘Now, you will go to Melbourne University. You will study arts. You will live in Janet Clarke Hall. And that's what you’ll do.’ It was kind of laid down for me.” The University of Melbourne in the 1960s was a heady world of male privilege and culture. Helen recalls arriving at the University, encountering a world of class, inferiority and Patrick McCaughey—who would go on to become the director of the National Gallery of Victoria.

“He was sitting there. A very handsome young person wearing a canary yellow knitted jumper and a matching canary yellow hand-knitted beanie. I had never seen a man dressed in bright colours.” Helen goes on to explain, “In 1961, this was unusual. He radiated a confidence I had never seen before. I can see now it was class confidence. It was a confidence coming from an intellectual family. He was completely at ease [at the] University. Knew what it was all about. Had plenty to say in tutes. I just sat there and thought, ‘What am I doing here?’”

“[By contrast,] my whole trajectory was downwards. I discovered

drinking and sex. I basically lost my grip,” Helen says. “I came out the other end kind of useless. I didn’t know what to do. I was drinking too much. I was lazy. I was hanging out with blokes who were just as lost as I was. I don’t think I went off the rails, but I didn’t know what to do next. So having a degree, so what? It was a third-class honours degree. It is quite hard to think of those times.”

As Helen speaks, she picks the pilled fluff from her black wool jumper. She moves her hands alongside her words. Crossing, unfolding, extending. I can’t help but see the actions corresponding to the stories she tells. Some stories remain closed, some are insouciantly thrown across the table, and others are products of careful constructions. I begin to understand what is shared, and what is not.

I ask Helen if she has blocked that time out of her mind.

“Yeah, I think so. I hope so.” She swipes her hand across the table, flicking the small pile of black fluff onto the floor. “I find it embarrassing to think about. Everyone but me seemed to know why they were there.”

Two cups of coffee arrive at our small table. “I think everyone suffers from imposter syndrome. I think it’s a sign of integrity.” Helen draws the cup of coffee to her face, takes a sip and continues:

“Many years later when I was in my fifties, I was arguing with my then-husband. He was a writer and was terrifically ambitious, whereas I blundered from one project to the next. He had a track that led straight to London and New York. We were talking away and I said, ‘Basically, I just think I’m a very small piece of shit.’ He said, ‘Really?’ [and] I said, ‘Doesn’t everyone?’ He said, ‘I don’t. I’m actually pretty pleased with the shape of myself.’”

“I was thunderstruck by this. I thought everybody must be underneath scared and felt they were just hanging on. When I found out people didn’t feel like that, the more I [saw] that this was an aberrant statement. But I do think people stagger their way through life. Just doing the best they can. Pulling their resources together each morning. People get up in the morning not knowing who they are. Having to recreate themselves each morning.” As Helen says this, I think of my own morning, staring at the narrow crack of the sky from my room and thinking: Should I wear a scarf? Is it too hot? I can take it off if it gets too hot, but I hate carrying around clothing. It weighs me down. I’ll just wear the scarf.

“It's not always traumatic, sometimes it can be refreshing.”

* * *

Helen’s work has always danced with controversy. Her 1995

non-fiction The First Stone is a book that still rouses fascination. Operatic in its indecision, it is a twisting dissection of a sexual assault at Ormond College, a residential college at the University of Melbourne. Of all the elegant threads that form the book, the most haunting is the very last line: “If only the whole gang of them hadn’t been so afraid of life.”

Helen remembers the book with consternation, and importance. “To put it bluntly, I got shit-canned for about a year after that book came out. It was an astonishing and painful experience. I learnt what it is to be hated. I guess I think it is very bracing to be hated. If you can bear it, you come out of it sort of stripped of illusions.” Helen’s eyes settle on the floor as if remembering that time.

“Way back in the fifties, Simone de Beauvoir said, ‘I write to be loved.’ When The First Stone came out, although it sold a lot of copies and people liked it, there was an incredible chorus of hatred and loathing,” Helen explains, creating a fist with her hands. “I thought it obviously didn’t work if I was writing to be loved. It stripped me of that illusion. That was very helpful. It’s always very helpful to be stripped of an illusion, even though it hurts.”

“The older I get, the more I think life is suffering. It’s a lot of other things as well, a lot of wonderful things. But there is an awful lot of suffering and pain and fear. I think to pretend there isn’t is kind of stupid and counter-productive.”

I ask Helen what we are suffering from. She pauses and stares at the table.

“The fear that we’re worthless. The fear we don’t exist, or that you could stop existing. The fear of being sad, of not being loved. The fear of being ugly. The fear of being stupid. The fear of being lied to. Told you’re good when you’re not.”

Regular tides of people wash up at the café and then recede back onto the street. Bankers and urban professionals stop to buy lunch. An old man muses at the newspaper on a ledge. A friend of the owner stops and talks for a while. Soon, they leave. Helen and I remain. She glances at my open notebook, my fountain pen. “I just love a fountain pen,” she says with a smile growing on her face. I pass her my pen to try out. She scribbles a few lines on the outskirts of the page.

“I love the way the ink rolls onto the page. It’s quite voluptuous. I feel kind of strongly about that actually. I think that writing is a physical thing. I feel sorry for people who write straight onto a computer.”

Our conversation traverses many areas. As Helen talks, I write

various words down— points that I want to return to. She speaks quickly, moving from topic to topic. A story will trigger another memory and soon, a new thought emerges. Slowly, the oncefull cups of coffee empty. All that remains is a fleshy dried foam clinging to the cups. We talk about Tár. “To be perfectly blunt, it gave me the shits. But I don’t want to say why.” I could include various other comments Helen made. But she said if I wrote them, she’d kill me. As I sit with Helen, a question keeps ringing through my mind—a saturnine rumination. What does it mean to be a writer?

“When I was younger, I used to think I could never be a writer because there’s so much detail that I didn’t know what I could do with it all. Because I can’t think of a way of dealing with it,” Helen says. The imposter syndrome will linger behind every word scribbled on a page. But reminding oneself that we are observers, listeners and storytellers makes it easier. How does one know when a story is over? The same way they know a conversation is over. It just is.

I ask Helen if fiction still interests her. “No, not really.” The answer startles me. I tilt my head, indicating a silent why? “I don’t think I was ever a fiction writer.” Historically, critics dismissed Helen’s fiction as a thinly veiled representation of her own reality. As Helen’s career has progressed, she has also moved beyond the mask of creation. She mentions that the world of non-fiction is where she feels most at home.

“I think in a sense, sitting in court following a trial, I used to feel so happy sitting there with my little notebook. I used to think I was born to do this. It’s the only situation where I’ve ever felt that so clearly. Every bit of me is working in concert, full bore, and I can do it. Sitting there I don’t feel like an imposter, even though I’m an untrained observer.” Helen manifests that to be a writer is to be an observer: to watch, listen and silently make sense of a world.

Helen and I rise. I slip on my coat and scarf, packing away my notebook and pen into my bag. We face each other, and just as she did when we first met, Helen gives me a firm handshake. “It was lovely meeting you, and all the best with the story.”

She then slips out of the café and onto the street, becoming one of the many figures. As I watch her leave, my eyes notice the glow of the buildings. Now, the sun is out.

The Unauthorised, Unorthodox, Unofficial Guide to Writing a Novel Under the Age of Twenty

Why one should be wary of their writer friend

Written by Claire Le Blond

All writers are copycats. Grossly unoriginal. In obscene defiance of the University of Melbourne’s plagiarism guide or whatever it’s called. Swindlers of sentences, purloiners of paragraphs; there is nothing a writer won’t do for the story. A writer will dance, with three left feet and untied shoes. A writer will sing in caterwauls, distorting synths underpinning a nefarious rhythm of words, coming out in crescendos as the song seeks its end. A writer will crack their knuckles. A writer will decline contact, stored away in a black room with nothing in it, devising stories from dust and shadows, weaving light from dark, something from nothing, everything from anything, all of it at once.

A writer will do anything for their story.

So, dear reader, I implore you to avoid the writer. Don’t be their friend.

Or else.

You’ll end up in the story.

For when it comes to characters, originality is a writer’s greatest sin.

Nothing is original. There is no point in being original, only in being true to you and what is known about you, yourself, and your life.

Journalist Tim Kreider once wrote, “what’s true of me is likely true of everyone else;” those truths can sustain a story.

Characters are friends, family, strangers. Even acquaintances can stumble across a likeness by chance if your story happens to find them.

I have characters who whisper with the cadence of those I left behind on the sun-swept wilds of the Eastern coast. I have sewn crisscrossed girls into the fabric of frayed stories, who cross their sevens and twos with the same glitter gel pens that the closest friend I had in preschool would do. I have pinned button-up boys down to the holes in the plot, the boys who laugh with madness in their eyes, the treasured insanity that lines the borders of my memories from years holed away in my high school’s chess room with friends who barely knew how to play. There are beauties, wonders of all categories and labels, characters who were born of the desire to be understanding, to understand to the best of my ability what was outside of my experience, of what I thought was original.

Yet, no one experience is ever the same. Therefore, everything is original, nothing is new, and we rejoice in that.

Sources:

Because to be a writer, is to know and be known. Writers have a part of themselves in every person. From the way they laugh in a character’s smile lines, wrinkled across a sweaty forehead. From the exact same head butt that their friends give them when they hug. It happens again, in a lonely suburban suburb where the trains never quite pass on time and the characters wait to go home. A million other things that a writer holds in their heart is passed on, in text, in story, in image, in song.

The first time my father read my third-longest work, he stopped after Chapter 12.

“I know you too well,” he said to me, handing the manuscript over. “I know you too well to read the rest.”

What does it mean to be known? Why must I, a simple writer, be subject to the mortifying ideal of being known?

In reference to Kreider’s sublime New York Times essay I Know What You Think of Me, I offer a reflection on the terror we must face to accept and receive the rewards of being loved and to an extent loving. In the digital age, where everything is simultaneously known and obscure, familiar and unprecedented, the act of knowing and being known is an act of resistance. It is taking your own walls apart brick by brick and fitting in the crooked windows all by yourself, as the people you hope to the highest love you back stare in with unrelenting and unconscious judgement. Kreider notes that, “there’s something existentially alarming about finding out how little room we occupy, and how little allegiance we command, in other people’s heads.” One would be shocked to find how big that little is for a writer.

A writer will always be known. Those around the writer too. The writer will continue to buy lush paperbacks and beautiful hardbacks that will likely never leave their hand painted shelves more than twice. The writer will hoard, hoard the wealth of unspoken knowledge in untouched leather-bound notebooks. The writer will labour for hours, not over their handsewn words but on music, on the curation of a banging playlist for an intensely specific platonic pairing of secondary characters that may or may not be stylised translations of the friends that come to mind, when the second and fourth songs play in time.

So, dear reader, when it comes to the writer, I implore you: Be their friend.

Or else.

https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/i-know-what-you-think-of-me/ https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/4/20752123/mortifying-ordeal-timothy-kreider-tumblr-meme

Illustration by Nina Hughes

The Magic Found Through Travel

Written by Julia Hristodoulou

When I escape the usual mundane habits, routines and surroundings of my everyday life, this is where I source true magic. I often tell people about my day in Paris: a day where I decided to challenge my nervousness, follow my gut and venture out on my own, using the complicated Parisian metro system to the Les Puces Flea Market. It was the coolest vintage market I had ever been to, filled with delicate Art Deco antiques, mountains of mysterious books and some of the most stylish people I've ever seen. To top it off, the first item I picked up, a simple little box with birds painted on it, contained a real four leaf clover sealed by the roof of its lid. That’s when I realised that the universe rewards the brave. And this is precisely why I love to travel.

I travel because I want to integrate myself within another person’s world. Everybody has a story to tell, and this story is what connects us. I think we all have something lingering in our heart that we could passionately tell a stranger, if they gave us the chance

Wandering aimlessly while abroad is one of my favourite things to do. I love to people-watch, to spy an old Italian lady in Rome dressed in the most sophisticated silk scarf, strolling by the park. To speak with a Kenyan immigrant in Paris about his experiences, how he wishes to return to his home in Africa to start a family. Travelling provides the space to be a witness to different lives; you are separated from the typical storyline in your home city, and here you are welcome to live through someone else’s for a change. To listen to a stranger’s story with curiosity, a disposition that comes from knowing you may never see this person again, brings you together in this moment, in a unique and intimate way.

I’m trying not to google “best restaurants near me” anymore, wherever I go. I used to be addicted to doing it, and I have definitely found some fantastic places. Yet simultaneously, I would spend so much time frantically locating a specific restaurant on google maps, only to be met with a line of tourists with the same idea queuing up out front! I was missing out on engaging deeply in my senses with the world surrounding me. Who knows how many beautiful people or unique places I didn’t notice by doing this. Sometimes, I walk by a restaurant or a bar and feel a mystical draw towards it, the owner might be a warm Vietnamese lady with gorgeous green eyeshadow, fervently telling me to “come inside darling!” as though she’d been my aunty her whole life. I am choosing to trust these feelings more than online reviews: intuition! But you don’t have to travel halfway across the globe to embark on this. I think you could even do this in your own city, gallivanting with curiosity, open-mindedness, maybe spontaneously searching a suburb you’ve never journeyed to before.

Yet, despite following my natural inclinations, I try my best to travel ethically. Personally, I don’t really understand the need for a 5-star resort, closed off from the rest of the world. It can be a relaxing and luxurious option, particularly if you are physically unable to “wander” around a new city, but I can’t help but perceive resorts as micromanaged curations that falsify and water-down the diversity of a foreign country. The grim price of luxury is reinforced when you consider how some resorts take portions of land and strip them of their natural resources, displacing workers from their livelihoods and destroying the natural landscape. Where do the locals go when their homes have become a playground catered to the rich? Or when tourism increases housing prices to the point where it is deemed unaffordable for one to live in their heritage land, forcing a family into homelessness? I know it is impossible to be a perfect environmentalist, but alongside the privilege to travel, it is necessary to be mindful of this.

What draws people to these places in the first place is their desire to feel safe. It makes sense that most major airports have a busy and bustling Starbucks attached to them. After all, we humans love familiarity; it draws upon the vulnerable part of us that wants to feel comforted and warm. But I will never stop asking myself: what would happen if I learnt to feel that way without clinging to what I know? What would happen if I ventured out into the unknown instead? Perhaps, by taking these risks, I could find a home wherever I go

A Woman's Condition

Written by Kien-Ling Liem

A woman’s condition is a man’s liberty. He wins from her losses. She bets on the black clover, but he is a jack of all trades, and so he holds the cards in his hand. He knows the game well – in fact, he invented it. She knows the rules of it, but only what he told her. The cards she holds in her hands are all dealt by him, and so, she can never win. And just when you thought she couldn’t be worse off, he always has one trick up his sleeve and another down her skirt.

Why play the game when you know you can’t win?

A woman’s condition is a paradox. It is her circumstance that is constrained, yet it also guarantees her survival in a world that belongs to men.

Her circumstance is one of compromise. A woman’s role is to compromise for everyone else. From the moment we can speak, women are taught to apologise, to take what they have and to stay quiet. But every sorry she mutters and every time she keeps her mouth shut even though she knows she should demand for more guarantees her safety. Every time she puts on an extra layer of clothing because all she sees is 10 ways you can keep safe from men and not Why men shouldn’t rape, she compromises herself. And yet, it is the only thing that protects her.

things men say

“You’re so mature for your age.”

The girl clutches her crayons and craft paper. She tugs on her hair.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, her dark wide eyes gazing up at the man.

Maturity means to speak only when absolutely necessary and appropriate. Maturity means to participate in grown up things, but not things that are seen as slutty or cheap.

“Girls mature faster than boys,” she is told. That message was instilled in her essence, engraved in her heart and indoctrinated in her brain, and so it seems, everyone else’s. It is common knowledge, an unwritten rule, that boys need time to catch up, and because it is supposedly scientific, it is accepted.

My ovaries developed and matured faster, but I still had to deal with a man’s penis for a brain. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way. Some men think with their reproductive glands, and because they’re still maturing, they just can’t help themselves. Their urge to look down your shirt or comment on your body: the words just tumble out of their mouths. But if I can control myself, why can’t he?

“It’s scary to think about, especially when you have sisters.”

No, it’s not ‘especially’ because you have sisters. You should care because women are human. A man cannot fathom his freedom being taken away the way a woman’s is. A man cannot fathom caring just for the sake of caring, and not because they have sisters or mothers or wives.

Sometimes, a man only starts caring when he has a daughter, because he has created this pure, innocent little girl of his own and can’t imagine any man treating her the way he treats his wife (see lyrics of Violent Crimes by Kanye West). My father always told me to cover my skin from men and stay away from men and to never trust what a man says. He is a man too. He knows what they think, what they talk about when the women aren’t there. And when a man knows that other men are the enemy to women, you know it is not a woman’s fault, but her condition.

the intricacies of intimacy

She has been consumed by the patriarchy. Eaten, bitten, chewed up and spit out. Used, but not to be used again. Tarnished. As a woman, she was conditioned. She cannot comprehend the severity of harm her own condition inflicts on her. She never does it for herself. She is always doing it for him. And so her only concern is how she can make herself as desirable as possible. What must she change, what part of her body must she transform, what part of her must she distort? When she looks in the mirror she sees fragments of herself, rearranged and repainted by his hand. He loves her not for the woman she is but for the woman she can be.

The core of female sexuality is self-centred yet selfless. Narcissistic yet modest. She is turned on by the thought of being the turn on, the pleaser but not to be pleased. She is the idol, the model, the muse. A woman could merely stand on a stool, flaunt her beauties like the feathers of a peacock, and wait for a man to approach her. And that is the magic of female sexuality – it is about being the attraction, but not showing that she is attracted. A woman’s desperation is ugly. A woman wanting it is the biggest turn off.

But that is her biggest secret – she does want it. That’s the challenge of it all: wanting it, without showing it. Female sexuality is a distorted mirror. An illusion. In the state of the patriarchy, a woman’s sexuality could even be a fragment of her imagination; non-existent. Women will be sexualised but denied of their sexuality, encouraged to be sexual but shamed for it, suffering in an endless condition of shame.

I am diseased with femininity. My condition forbids me from lusting more, and yet I still do. Is this my part in the game?

Illustration by Meg Bonnes

A Nazi portrait hangs in our hallway.

Content Warning: References to the Holocaust

Deep Blue Eyes

Written by Chase McCleary

Slightly wobbly pencil lines reveal the artist’s amateurism but general competence. He was by no means a professional. But why should he have been? Most 20-something Nazis plucked from Somewherestein, Germany couldn’t have snapped an image much less drawn one that matched these soft strokes of a smooth graphite pencil.

Careful shading amplifies the deep blue eyes staring out of the drawing, the only bit of colour on an otherwise greying and faded piece of paper, likely torn from an already greyed and faded pad or notebook or whatever else could be found lying around.

The Nazi portrait is not of a Nazi. It is of my grandmother. Just five years old, chubby, innocently looking at the artist.

Correction: it is not a Nazi portrait. It is a Nazi’s portrait.

To her, he is not a Nazi. He is a man, a stranger now living in her home with about 30 other similarly dressed strangers.

Though he’s less of a stranger than the others. He has played with her. He has read to her. He has gotten to know her during his unannounced yet unquestioned stay in her home.

Her father and her mother never ask those questions. They do not speak of such things. They watch from behind their windows, eyebrows level, carefully set so as not to betray their illegal emotions; they read the newspapers, hands clenched, yet sweaty on the pages; they listen to the radio, feet, fingers, hearts tapping rapidly—but they do not speak of such things.

The residential occupation ended a short time later. My grandmother would eventually leave Germany for the United States, where she graduated from university, married, raised my mother, uncle and aunt, and today still resides in a cosy home with a thriving garden. She reads voraciously, she knits expertly, and she bakes one of, if not the, best German chocolate almond cakes.

My grandmother still does not speak of the war. But she does keep this portrait. For decades, the Nazi’s portrait hung on a relatively obscure wall in her home. My mother remembers seeing it as a child, not thinking much. She remembers thinking the little girl was cute, and upon learning that it was, in fact, my grandmother, she came to quite like the blue-eyed, doll-faced drawing.

Yet over time, as newer—“better” as I’ve heard it described —art filled the house, the drawing was gradually shifted to a more obscure wall, and then a more obscure shelf, and then a more obscure nook. My grandmother moved houses often, and eventually the drawing found itself in a shipping box, relegated to the status of “misc. wall decorations,” where it stayed, forgotten.

When spring rolled around this past year, and when my grandmother decided to do a bit of spring cleaning, she rediscovered the illustration. Remembering my mother’s interest in it, she offered it as a gift. It now hangs on a relatively obscure wall in our home.

My grandmother does not speak about the drawing, but I believe it is more than a misc. wall decoration to her. I do not know what she sees in those deep blue eyes, and I do not know what they might conjure in her own. I do know that the shipping box label is incorrect. This is not “misc.”

I have come to quite like the blue-eyed, doll faced drawing too. The shading is nice. The little girl is cute. No, it’s by no means the clearest existing depiction of my grandmother. We’ve found old photos of her as a teenager standing in the same home around the same time. They’re grainy, but clear enough to get a relatively realistic impression of the time, the place, the setting.

But despite their realistic depiction, the photographs are not as real as the drawing.

The photographs don’t have the faint smudge of an eraser near the left cheek. The photographs don’t show one ear slightly larger than the other. The photographs don’t show an added attention to detail in the eyes, the pure blue eyes.

The photographs don’t have the signature of a friendly Nazi scribbled in the corner. Decorating the corner. Staining the corner. Legitimising the corner.

Sometimes I look at the deep blue eyes, the deep blue eyes I once saw as pure and innocent, and wonder how deep they really are. I wonder what ratio of purity to innocence the Nazi artist saw in those deep blue eyes. I wonder if he drew them for the innocence below the blue, or if he drew them for their pure, unstained blueness. Or maybe he was just drawing on face value: two eyes that happened to be blue.

Whatever it is, when you look at them, they look at you.

Without discounting its origins, I’ll continue to hang this Nazi’s portrait / my grandmother’s portrait / my family’s portrait on a wall in my house. I can’t say I’m not thankful for the drawing. Not just because it’s old, and not just because it’s a passeddown family heirloom.

Most importantly, it gives me the closest glimpse at my grandmother’s memories: faded, conflicted, enduring, and maybe a little bit proud of such cute chubby cheeks and of such deep blue eyes.

Which is why I feel obliged, but hesitate, to say: Thanks, Unknown Nazi?

The Problem –

Homosexuality & Happy Ever Afters A Case Study on Hetero

Written by Meagan Hansen

Hollywood has been contributing to the marginalisation of queer identities since it was founded over a century ago. From disproportionately representing heterosexual and cisgender (cishet) characters, to queer coding early Disney villains, Hollywood has actively constructed representations of LGBTQIA+ people that affirm the cishet identity as the norm.

Increasingly, LGBTQIA+ identities are positively represented on screen. Sex Education (2019-), Euphoria (2019-) and Heartbreak High (2022-) are all modern coming-of-age shows which counteract the heteronormativity and ciscentrism intrinsic to Hollywood films. However, representation alone does not address the tropes that Hollywood has been reinforcing about queer identities for the past century. In failing to acknowledge the existence of tropes, modern LGBTQIA+ representation implicitly trivialises this aspect of queer history.

Andrew Wilkie is the industry coordinator and programming assistant at Queer Screen, the not-for-profit which runs the annual Mardi Gras Film Festival. They suggest modern queer representation should be created by LGBTQIA+ filmmakers and represent a range of queer experiences.

“The major thing for me is that [queer representation is] authentic and coming from our perspective. We, as a community, do have our own tragedies and our own sad, emotional stories. I think it's important that we give space for people to tell those stories of what they, and our community, have been through.”

However, several barriers prevent the production and distribution of authentic LGBTQIA+ representation.

“Getting funding for films is always difficult, especially when you are doing films which represent underrepresented people,” says Wilkie. Lacking structures that allow queer films to fully represent LGBTQIA+ experiences, they should focus on creating empowering LGBTQIA+ representation through subverting harmful tropes. This would allow films to move from acknowledging the existence of queer identities to counteracting tropes that actively suppress them.

A Case Study on Hetero –

Hetero (2022) reclaims agency over queer representation through subverting tropes about LGBTQIA+ identities.

The miniseries features five queer friends as they attempt to save their school’s Gay Straight Alliance from an unforgiving principal, who threatens to disband the club if they fail to recruit more members. In desperation, the club decides to lend themselves out as ‘gay best friends’ to heterosexual classmates.

Since being released on YouTube in 2022, Hetero has gained viral success on TikTok and Instagram. The first episode has been viewed over 345,000 times1.

Hetero is a unique example of authentic representation that effectively subverts queer tropes. Rather than ignoring demeaning LGBTQIA+ tropes in film, Hetero acknowledges them and assigns alternative, positive meanings.

Sabina Buensuceso portrays lead character Quinn Goodman. According to them, the writer and co-director of Hetero was a teenager when they created the story.

“It is all just completely honest. All the costumes were from people's wardrobes… It left very little room for us to pretend.”

The Solution –

Hollywood has created and reproduced many tropes about

LGBTQIA+ people. I will discuss what they are, their origins, and how subversion counteracts them. Hetero will be considered as a case study.

Bury Your Gays –

Queer characters rarely get happy endings. Their existence is often framed through themes of isolation and tragedy, and they are frequently killed off before their cishet counterparts.

Wings (1927), a silent film featuring the first same-sex kiss in cinema history, is among the oldest examples of this trope. This war romance carefully queer codes the friendship between two pilots who are both vying for the attention of the same girl. As the film concludes, one of the men is wounded in action; his friend holds him as he dies and kisses him.

This trope arose in response to strict censorship laws that prevented LGBTQIA+ representation on screen2. Filmmakers in support of LGBTQIA+ rights needed to queer-code characters and frame them through themes of suffering and tragedy for films to be approved. However, this trope remained pervasive in Hollywood after censorship laws were removed. Executive Suite (1976), Seinfeld (1996), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), and It, Chapter Two (2019), all incorporate this trope.

The prevalence of this trope in Hollywood means that simply representing LGBTQIA+ characters does not counteract the expectation of audiences to see queer stories depicted as tragedies.

Hetero is advertised as a show where ‘everyone is gay, and no one dies.’ It actively subverts this trope through assigning its characters story arcs that resolve happily.

“I think that the aspect of ‘no one dies’ is obviously reflective of lots of mainstream queer films, which get lots of awards and attention… but usually focus on our tragedies,” says Wilkie.

“They have for many years, in many ways, because straight audiences come to expect that sort of representation of our stories.”

Whilst each of the five lead characters experiences challenges relating to queer adolescence, the emphasis placed on their tight-knit bond creates a sense of belonging and friendship that contrasts against films that adopt the ‘bury your gays’ trope.

Adriane Watson portrays one of these lead characters, Zel Amari, on Hetero

“To know that it's affected so many people in such a positive way, it just feels amazing. Because there's so many [viewers] who've said, ‘I've never felt represented, I've never felt seen, and this made me feel seen’. That's all that it's ever been about.”

The Gay Bestie –

This trope features a cishet woman navigating her dating life whilst receiving relationship advice from a flamboyant, gay best friend. Beyond providing advice, this character only exists to create comedic relief through their boisterous and effeminate demeanour. This trope peaked in popularity in the 1990s, in movies and shows like Clueless (1995), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), Will and Grace (1998), and Sex and the City (1998).

Whilst this trope did generate greater awareness of LGBTQIA+ identities, it also created a unidimensional image of how queer men should act. It continues to infer the inferiority of gay men, as they are included solely to advance the plot lines of cishet characters and relationships3.

Hetero comedically subverts this trope, reclaiming LGBTQIA+ agency through the five lead characters voluntarily lending themselves out as gay best friends to recruit straight members into their club.

Importantly, this subversion centres on the gay best friend, rather than the heterosexual counterpart, and is willingly pursued by queer characters to advance their interests within the plotline.

Hetero further challenges this trope through giving its lead characters space to explore their identities as queer teenagers, unrelated to their roles as ‘gay best friends’.

Zel is characterised as the ‘mum friend’ in Hetero. In portraying this character, Watson explores how Zel is negatively impacted by this position, and the emotional toll of committing more energy to friendships than is returned.

“When we were filming, I wore my baby hairs out a lot,” says Watson. “You know, my hair wasn't perfectly slicked back or anything like that. I didn't cover up all the pimples on my face or any of the blemishes because I wanted to be real…”

They joked that Zel’s character would not have been able to take care of the entire friendship group whilst maintaining an immaculate appearance.

In developing characters that have identities and purposes independent of cishet characters, Hetero subverts the preconception that queer characters should advance the interests of cishet characters to be represented on-screen.

The Predatory Lesbian –

This trope depicts queer women as antagonists who are determined to victimise beautiful female characters through queer-coded and sexually suggestive tactics. In Dracula’s Daughter (1936) the antagonist is a female vampire, who preys on a young, beautiful woman by asking her to pose so that she can draw her. The younger woman takes off her shawl in response, creating sexual implications.

In The Little Mermaid (1989), Ursula's low voice and short haircut are among multiple visual indicators through which she is queer coded. Her purpose within the film is to undermine the interests of Ariel, a pure and conventionally attractive protagonist4.

This trope presents sapphic attraction as inherently perverse and un-consensual, with devastating effects for women and gender diverse individuals who are attracted to women and/or femininity. In making power imbalances and malevolence integral to the little existing representation of sapphic identities, Hollywood has failed to show queer communities what healthy and consensual sapphic relationships look like. Because this trope is often used without explicit acknowledgment of queerness and sapphic attraction, subversion is fundamental to counteracting it.

Hetero subverts this trope through its depiction of Quinn’s relationship with popular cheerleader and love interest, Olivia. Quinn is a sapphic, non-binary character, and is boxed into the stereotype of the ‘predatory lesbian’ during the series finale, the school principal accusing them of making unsolicited advances on Olivia.

As Quinn was previously established as a likeable and empathetic character, the jarring shift in their depiction alerts the audience to the mechanics of this trope.

“Throughout queer history it's really only been okay for [LGBTQIA+] people to be on screen if they [are a] villain or doing something harmful. Otherwise, [it] kind of gets pushed under the rug,” says Buensuceso.

Intertextual references to Jennifer’s Body (2009) assist Hetero in challenging the stereotype of the predatory lesbian. This film, which Quinn watches with Olivia, features a demonic cheerleader as she preys on male high school students.

“I think that it was quite significant foreshadowing that they use Jennifer's Body,” says Buensuceso. “She is quite literally a predator. You know, she eats people.”

Further, this foreshadowing highlights how the ‘predatory lesbian’ trope reflects Hollywood’s heteronormative underpinnings, rather than the validity of sapphic identities.

The Whitewashing of Queer Media –

Where queer experiences have been included on screen, even within tropes, they have historically centred around white experiences. Whilst people of colour are increasingly represented in

LGBTQIA+ film and television, Hollywood continues to disproportionately represent white queer characters over those of other racial backgrounds. Resultantly, LGBTQIA+ representation has failed to address the role of intersectionality in creating different forms of oppression between LGBTQIA+ communities.

The 2015 film, Stonewall, actively prioritises white experiences, despite their irrelevance within the narrative. The historical film explores the struggles that its white, male protagonist faces as a gay man in the 1960s, foregrounding them against the events of the Stonewall Riots. Whilst protests did involve white, queer people, they were largely driven by trans women of colour, such as Martha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who are overlooked in this film.

Whilst Hetero features multiple people of colour in its leading cast, it also replicates elements of whitewashing.

“Representation is everything, and I feel like the way that Hetero could do that better is by putting more darker skinned people in the cast,” says Watson.

“Eden, Jubilee and I, we represented, primarily, the people of colour. And none of us are dark skinned, you know. [Eden] and I are both biracial, too.”

Through only featuring POC characters with lighter skin, Hetero reproduces this aspect of whitewashing, which has made queer communities less accessible to people with darker skin.

Watson discusses how they didn’t identify with the LGBTQIA+ community for large parts of their life.

“I was really having a hard time grappling with the idea that someone could be part of our community and still be racist and still be xenophobic, and still be everything,” Watson said.

“It really separated me from the community for a while… grappling with that fact that there are some who wouldn't even recognise me as part of our community. They wouldn't even recognise me as equal.”

Quinn is established as the protagonist of Hetero, driving the narrative forward through their role as leader of the Gay Straight Alliance. Buensuceso discusses how, as a white actor, they contributed to aspects of whitewashing in Hetero

“I would absolutely love to see more media created where it is not just an easily palatable white, queer person who is at the forefront. Like myself, I know that a lot of viewers are going to see me and be like, ‘yeah, that's a hot queer person’. They might have a different reaction if it was a person of colour.”

“I think you cannot tell queer stories whilst being whitewashed, it's just it's not going to be complete,” continues Buensuceso. “So much of our history, especially in the States, is built on the backs of people of colour, especially black trans women. I think it's extremely important that we tell stories that paint them not as villains, and not as people undeserving of happy endings.”

Watson discusses how it would be helpful to have more POC involved in writing and producing queer representation.

“You can get people of colour to play all these characters, but if there's not someone writing for them, it's not going to be accurate in the best way possible. There's only so much you can do, and I feel like a lot of that could be smoothed over with more people of colour in the writing room…,” says Watson.

Representation alone cannot rectify Hollywood’s harm to queer communities. The engrained nature tropes means that they must be acknowledged and subverted for their meaning to be altered and turned into positive representation.

“I think it's important that we give space for people to tell those stories of what they have been through, [and] about what our community has been through,” says Wilkie. “I think that but I think the important thing is that they're coming from an authentic place and they're coming from queer filmmakers, writers and producers, rather than it being straight people telling a version of what they think our stories are.”

Synthesis

Written by Kaih Mitchell

I used to be jealous of electric guitarists. Not because I wished I could play guitar. I was jealous of the range of sounds they could get out of their instrument. There was something organic about it that I couldn’t recreate with my digital piano.

This first started when I joined the school big band. I was an eager year nine with more enthusiasm than talent, and far from the best piano player available. The band was missing a few instruments, so I was relegated to playing the keyboard to fill in the gaps. The keyboard can uniquely imitate almost any instrument you’ve ever heard of, and plenty that you haven’t. Though, I discovered its limitations when I tried to play the second trombone part. An iconic trombone technique, the glissando, or glide, gets very clunky when you can only press individual keys.

The band’s repertoire included songs by Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock. Listening to the original recordings by these keyboard masters, I was awestruck by the range of funky sounds. There was a unique quality I couldn’t describe. These songs were from the 70s, digital keyboards didn’t break into the market until the 80s. The secret behind these sonic geniuses was analog instruments. I dived down a Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about vintage electro-mechanical keyboards. I’d always wondered what the difference between an electric piano and a digital piano was. Unlike my keyboard, which plays back pre-recorded samples, electric pianos have hammers that strike a string or metal bar when you play. Vibrations are detected by a pickup before being amplified, much like an electric guitar. It’s a purely analog process and every note is unique.

Learning how these instruments worked kept me awake at night. I was entranced by the ingenious beauty of how problems were solved before a computer could just regurgitate a recording. It inspired me to try making something. Since I was a kid I have found tinkering with circuits fascinating. It wasn’t long before I started playing with audio circuits to try to recreate some of the magic of analog instruments.

I decided to make a modular analog synthesiser. Just like a guitar has vibrating strings, or a saxophone has a vibrating reed, a purely electronic instrument needs a source of vibration, called an oscillator. Taking inspiration from various schematics online, many of them vintage, I made my own circuit boards. I drilled thousands of holes, painstakingly soldered every single component, diagnosed why it inevitably didn’t work, and replaced the bits I blew up when I accidentally connected the power backwards.

After I designed the front panel, I realised I had made something I could be proud of.

An oscillator is the heart of any synth. The circuit I built had the capability of outputting several different waveforms, square, sawtooth, triangle and sine. Much like any instrument, each of these waves have distinctly different sounds and range from the pure, whistle-like sine wave, to the harmonically rich and aggressive sawtooth wave. They can all be combined or filtered differently for musical effect. I could turn a knob and sweep continuously through the frequency range. I could finally perform a smooth glide from one note to another, even if it sounded nothing like a trombone.

As fascinating as this was, a circuit board that just generated never-ending notes was pretty annoying. I needed something to shape the sound. Building a voltage controlled amplifier allowed me to make the notes louder when I played louder, and most importantly, switch off when I stopped. The third module I built was a voltage-controlled filter. It takes in an input and muffles sounds above or below the cut-off frequency. Modulating the cut-off frequency gives you some very interesting effects. The first time I switched it on, my mouth was agape. Mainly because it sounded jaw-droppingly cool, but also because changing the shape of my open mouth performed a similar wah-wah effect on my voice.

The most fascinating and bizarre-sounding effect happens when you feed some of the output back into the input. Instead of the hideous scream you get when you put a microphone too close to its loudspeaker, you get the subtle emphasis of different harmonics. Aside from pure sine waves, any note has overtones at higher frequencies. The frequencies of the harmonics are at whole number multiples of the fundamental pitch. The ratio of different overtones is why two different instruments can sound vastly different when playing the exact same note. My filter let me add and subtract different harmonics and create an array of sonic textures.

As much as I love the way analog circuitry gives you so much freedom, I was not prepared to build a whole keyboard from scratch to play my synth. I already had a digital keyboard, I just needed a way to use it to control my analog instrument. MIDI stands for musical instrument digital interface and is a standard way for connecting instruments to each other. I built a MIDI-to-analog converter so I could use the keyboard of my digital piano to play my analog synth like a conventional instrument. Up until this point I had been entertaining myself experimenting with weird sounds by turning some of the many knobs. Now I could press a key and get the note I wanted, or turn a knob to get any of the notes in between, not to mention all the other weird effects at my disposal. Analog and digital in perfect symbiosis.

I can’t deny that digital music production has a very strong position these days. You can produce an entire song with nothing but a laptop. But part of the appeal of analog instruments is their various quirks. The sonic characteristics that are a product of the construction of the machine. The material properties, subtle electronic interference, the temperature of the room. All these things may be considered imperfections, but have ultimately become iconic parts of an instrument’s particular sound. Computers are getting powerful enough to simulate classic analog instruments in gory detail, but I find they are still unable to wholly capture the organic experience of analog music making. These almost imperceivable differences in sound breathe life into the music and re-introduce a little humanity into the world of auto-tune.

At least I am no longer jealous of electric guitarists.

Kaih also hosts Radio Sci-Lens, bringing science into focus, Fridays at 4pm on Radio Fodder or wherever you get your podcasts. Twitter @radioscilens

Smoke Signals: The Complexities of Being a Young Smoker in Today's Society

Written by Savier D'Arsie-Marquez

Having been a smoker for a long time now, watching different reactions people have to it is always interesting. The mutual gaze of understanding from smokers, the sneering judgemental eyes, the wrinkled noses, the impassioned argument of the unhealthy side effects and the flirtatious smile of someone asking for a puff. Within these interactions I have been asked many times why I started, and the truth matters on who I’m talking to. Be it, because of hospitality, learnt from my father or as an edgy rebellion. Only the people close to me get the truth.

Because it would kill me slower than other methods of self-harm.

Although I would be lying not to discuss the stereotypes of the tortured artist that influenced my decision, it was predominantly a conversation I had with myself in the pits of depression when I first moved here. I lived with the narrative of dying by the time I was 25, living up to the hedonistic ideals of my heroes, yet in practice I was broke and isolated in a new city knowing no one. Playing with knives, standing on the edges of train platforms, the way I found an escape from the worst of these temptations was to find an outlet I had repeatedly been told will take care of it all on its own, while giving a semblance of bliss. I grabbed those packets of tobacco, stared at the photos of people dying of lung cancer, of the tragedies the addiction caused and its powerful effects and said yes please.

An old housemate of mine is also a smoker, a teen mum, the respect I have for her is boundless. Yet during COVID-19, when things got too much for them and they had to go to the hospital, the doctor’s medical opinion was to not give up cigarettes, it was too large an aspect of their life, that to give it up in that mental state could seriously put them at risk. The reality of being addicted to smoking can sometimes mean that continuing to smoke can be better than forcing someone to quit , especially when their mental health is at a low. I’m not here to argue for the health benefits of this deadly addiction, but rather to emphasise the multi-layered issue of quitting smoking in relation to mental health, where the crutch of addiction can be a stabilizing factor. With the rising mental health crisis across this country, we need to have care and respect for the people who have addictions to nicotine. Aggressive moralising never helped anyone. When you start smoking for self-harm and are then to keep smoking if your mental health declines, then perhaps there are broader systemic issues that need to be addressed here. We should look at pulling out the roots instead of the white oblong weed that it flowers into. Especially in a country where there are larger fines for getting caught growing a tobacco plant in comparison to a cannabis plant.

The New Zealand initiative to be a smoke-free country is the reason why I am writing about this relationship with tobacco. They have banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2009 and look to vastly reduce the number of locations where you can buy cigarettes. While I commend their efforts, the addict in me lurches in fear of how it would affect me if they did that here. I gave up for years but came back after a bad break-up, the luscious embrace of my addiction springing to attention while my guard was down. Where I am now on the brink of 25 is quite different to the angry, depressed 19-year-old who started smoking. 25 is too close now to seem like a worthwhile age to die, yet the addiction continues. I feel my mood twist and change when my addiction isn’t sated, and it frustrates me of the journey I will have to go on to fix it.

But this was my choice. Being raised in the 2000’s, I am not ignorant when it comes to the dangers of smoking. I’ve seen it poison families , and witnessed the irrational behaviour that occurs when smokers haven’t had a smoke.et instead of pushing me away, I’ve instead fallen to the same trappings.. I never smoked because it felt cool, I did it in the hope that it would eventually kill me and now I have to deal with the ramifications of that mindset. This mindset colours the conversations of talking to smokers, we all know the march towards death we take part in, yet we all willingly chose it for different reasons. Plain packaging has obviously done strides to change smoking habits since the 1960’s, but the reality of smokers today denotes a different relationship with cancer sticks. As the tar fills our lungs, we can take pride in our informed choices to kill ourselves softly.

It isn’t always about the nicotine but the death sentence it represents.

I applaud New Zealand’s strategy and believe Australia should follow the example it presents. Even if it terrifies the addict in me, it shows a future wherein a worldwide addiction can be halted.

“What Are You Crying For?”: Gypsys Of Pangea Celebrate The Last Leg Of Their ‘Bloody

Good Life’ Tour

Written by Lochlainn Heley

Touring in the music industry is a herculean feat with dozens of labours. For psychedelic rock troupe Gypsys of Pangea, the feeling of finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is an exhausting but electrifying one. For the final leg of their tour, the Gypsys head to Fitzroy local venue Bodriggy Brewery, ready to jam out and celebrate the final throes of their massive road trip with their latest single, ‘Bloody Good Life’.

I catch the band just an hour before their soundcheck at Bodriggy. With coffees in hand, we wander to the local park, dog walkers, Sunday brunchers and an Ausick group nearby. Before I’ve started the interview, the four boys—lead singer Luciano, keys player Charlie, guitarist and manager Diego, and steely drummer Steveo—are already bantering. They are spitfiring jokes about life and themselves, and it’s far from the exhausted rock crew I expected.

I ask if they have a secret to supporting one another. Their answer: banter, backhanded loving and a devious game.

Luciano: Yeah. We actually developed a game on this tour. It's called ‘3-2-1’. Basically, you pose a question to the band, “who's the most XYZ?”, you know, “who's the most dynamic player?”. It started as a means for producing compliments... But then we soon ran out of compliments and it devolved into something darker, more sinister. But it's been good! It's like revealing the hidden truths of the crew. We get to be honest with who we are in front of each other.

Charlie: And we figured out each one of our boundaries as well in the process.

Luciano: For the record, I have no boundaries. They haven’t found mine yet.

It’s a feat considering how much time they’ve spent together over the tour. Beginning in Narooma, NSW, the Gypsys have made their way to several country locals, each with unique set ups and clientele. Curious to know how the boys gel in such varied places, I ask what makes a good venue.

Luciano: It's the people. When you’re playing in a tin shed and people are getting into it—you know you're going to have a good time. Also the sound guy. Sound guy is the first point of contact for when you rock up and put your gear in there, and they are really cool or they're really accommodating or they just seem like they give the slightest shit about what they're doing. Yeah, it primes you for a good time.

Charlie: You feel a lot more comfortable to perform in that situation.

Diego: Yeah. Like, the other night at Catfish Bar in Fitzroy, the sound guy there was a legend and told us to start jamming—just

start playing whatever. They were super attentive, mixing it as we're playing, just jamming around and whatnot. That was more or less the soundcheck. By the time we finished jamming it felt so natural. Seriously, it's fantastic. And we wear these black headbands on stage every now and then, and he was like, “Oh, can I, can I grab one?” He became part of the crew for that hour—it was pretty great.

For the band, music is first a conversation that’s intimately influenced by the audience. It’s a growing attitude for artists across indie scenes, but hearing them talk about it was enthralling. In a past interview, Luciano was asked to describe what genre the band fit into, which he compared to asking “what is the colour blue?”. I venture with an alternative question: what does their music feel like?

Luciano: Oh, great! Well, if you listen to the feeling of the live music, you get this feeling of like… this sense of worship, you know?

Lochlainn: Sure, like the stage is a sacred place?

Luciano: The stage is, yeah. Like an altar, you know? And there's a religious experience going on… sort of this spiritual incantation. And basically the cut and drive is there's this uplifting distraction from the mundane—but not escapism. Just a positive respite. That's sort of the feeling. Like you're laying back on a Sunday and there's a shit-storm coming your way on Monday, but for now you can just enjoy the sunrise.

Lochlainn: Is that feeling shared?

Steveo: I just wish that I could believe my own words as much as you do now. I think it's music that makes you feel, whether it's faster tempos, slower tempos, dynamic changes… I think that's what we try to aim for when we play live. Yeah, it just makes people feel something.

Charlie went on to describe the feeling of the whole band as dedication to humour.

Charlie: Yeah, I think what's distinctive about Gypsys since its inception was the element of humour in the content: the lyricism and the performance. Whether that's us dressing up with fucking headbands and wifebeaters and stuff like that. There’s humour in the lyrical content that's quite entertaining. You don't really see that with too many other bands.

The boys’ social media is also quite rife with that humour. Apart from their usual banter and reposting of old parody videos, several posts showed the group casually camping out during small moments of respite across their tour. They recount stories of saving a little turtle from baking on the road and their impromptu jamming sessions on campgrounds.

Steveo: It's pretty funny though! Watching people walk past or row past kayaks, just look over to see four guys with guitars and a drum kit in the middle of nowhere.

Diego: Yeah! To give some context, it was kind of like a state forest where you had to drive down this dirt road for a good 20 minutes across all these random farms, and then go on Google Maps and it just gives-up—there's no roads or anything. Just follow these crazy dirt roads that are meant for four-wheel-drives, and we're driving two Toyota vans, and we end up right on the riverbank. You're just some adventure kayaker, and there's a dude with a drum kit… It would’ve been pretty weird.

Lochlainn: That’s how you all want to do band practice now?

Luciano: Yeah! I was telling Steveo we should book some weekend writing sessions where we just hop in the vans and go find some cool spot and set up there—no one else around.

Charlie: Honestly, it was good! No fucking distractions, you know. A key mantra for the Gypsys is “future facing with a backwards glance”. Intrigued by this philosophy, I proceed to ask how familiar they are with their inspirations’ back catalogues.

Luciano: Yeah, I'd say [we are familiar]. I started the band at 16 and I was just into '70s stuff, and the boys I was playing with then were also into that kind of thing. It kind of evolved from that, but then at some point you go “let's create something that sounds fresh to us”. That's a slow process because there's only 12 notes and everything's been done. And so then you realise you just gotta put your character into it… Every reincarnation of the Gypsys, I've seen the vibe change so noticeably that it's almost like a different sound just because of the players—and that's happened again with these boys. To be honest, it's the best sound I've had with the Gypsys.

Steveo: Yeah, I think the most important thing is, at the end of the day, it still sounds like Gypsys.

Their latest single ‘Bloody Good Life’ is no exception to this rule. It is completely Gypsys in style, with its classic ‘70s euphoria guitar riffs and the inclusion of raw vocals from Luciano. The song’s stripped-back texture is an interesting departure from their classic soundscaping focus, but their trademark wittiness is all in the lyrics as they poke fun at humdrum worries to look at a positive aspect of nostalgia: “ What are you crying for?”. I ask how the single has been received across the tour.

Charlie: It's actually been one of the highlights of the set! You really feel the energy of the crowd when we play that song. Last night at Golden Vine pub they fucking lapped it up.

Luciano: You [Lochlainn] hit the nail on the head before with that ‘nostalgia’ feeling… The harmonies in the choruses really evoke that

feeling—they do for me anyway.

Diego: Also, we pretty much recorded it live, more or less. We went to Charlie's parents' old house: a ‘60s, rundown, the-hot-waterdoesn't-work kind of house. And we set up a whole recording studio there. A beach shack down south. We literally hit record and recorded the bones of the song. We added vocals and that was really about it. Like, what you hear is BANG, just like the recording. And it came out really, really well. I suppose live, you have the same reception… people feel it’s like the recording, which is fantastic.

In honour of their ancient continental namesake, I end the interview asking them to name their favourite dinosaur.

Luciano: T-Rex.

Charlie: You actually kind of looked like a T-Rex.

Luciano: Yeah, thanks mate.

Diego: It's not a dinosaur, but there's something called the Titanoboa, which is the biggest snake ever… I can't remember how big it was.

Charlie: … It's not a Dinosaur, but—

Diego: Well, it's kind of a fucking dinosaur. It's from the same era. There's not much of a difference—

Luciano: Legs.

Diego: All right, a crocodile—how about that? A crocodile and a dinosaur. Same thing.

Luciano: They're not the same as a snake, though.

Charlie: Pretty close. Take away the legs.

Luciano: Charlie, what's your favourite dinosaur?

Charlie: Probably a Brachiosaurus?

Diego: … I don't think that's real.

Charlie: It is a fucking real dinosaur… is it not?

Luciano: What's yours Steveo?

Steveo: I'd say a pterodactyl so I could fly away from these guys.

The band ends the night boppin’ through their set and hugging it out—after a cheeky outro of five sustained pauses. You can find ‘Bloody Good Life’ out now on all platforms.

Radio Fodder’s Gigs Declassified: Winter Edition

Written by Radio Fodder Blog Team

There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel. After months of studying hard and catching up on several missed assignments, the end of the semester is finally here. So to commemorate the halfway point of the Farragoyear, the Radio Fodder team has put together a list of gigs that are sure to help readers celebrate the end of everyone’s semester. Expect classic musicals, big comedy gigs and Melbourne locals like The Corner and the Workers Club to be hitting their winter season swing. Radio Fodder hopes the end of the semester treats you well!

Weyes Blood ft. Lost Animal

7 to 8 June — The Forum

By Crystal Lym

Weyes Blood is in the midst of her trilogy album and she brings her latest album And in Darkness, Hearts Aglow to centre stage at The Forum. With the ambience of The Carpenters, paired with her chamber pop-esque sound, Weyes Blood performing live is sure to be an ethereal experience. Accompanying her as an opening act is Melbourne-based artist Lost Animal, who brings a catchy rhythm and tunes reminiscent of his upbringing in Papua New Guinea. We have a feeling that this night of indie and electro music is one not to be missed.

Deafheaven

31 May to 1 June — Max Watt's

By Joel Duggan

Blackgaze heavyweights Deafheaven are returning to Australia for the first time in over four years for a national tour of our major cities, including two Melbourne headliners on 31 May and 1 June. Still hot off the release of 2021’s Infinite Granite, the boys have developed quite a repertoire of albums to draw from over their 13 years of existence, including 2013 classic Sunbather. Already slated to play Sunbather in full at Hobart’s Dark Mofo at the end of their tour, fans are eager to see how they will balance the harsher tracks of this favourite with their more contemporary work.

Stellie

2 June — Yah Yahs

By Joanne Zou

Adelaide-based indie pop artist Stellie will soon be making her way around the nation in support of her new single ‘Softy’, which includes a stop at Fitzroy’s Yah Yahs. With one EP and a handful of singles to her name, Stellie’s music is known for being sparkling and confessional, perfect for such an intimate venue. Take a (probably deserved) night off from cramming for assessments to support a precious emerging talent!

Arlo Parks

17 July – The Forum

By Joanne Zou

The anticipation around Arlo Parks’s sophomore album My Soft Machine is growing in the lead-up to the record dropping on 26 May. The London artist will be here just weeks after, bringing her poetic sensibilities, tender lyricism and richly textured sounds to the perennially gorgeous Forum Theatre. Expect Arlo to share songs from both the new album and debut Collapsed in Sunbeams (2021) on what is sure to be a magical evening.

Adrian Dzvuke

3 June — The Workers Club

By Lochlainn Heley

In his short career, Adrian Dzvuke has made big waves across the festival scene with his signature R&B and Afrobeats. His latest album DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT SWEETHEART is an intimate reminder to enjoy the positive moments in dark times, infused with exciting electronic rhythmic and vocals by Adrian, perfect for the Workers Club venue. Look out for Fodder favourites ‘FIYAH’ and ‘Domino’.

Rocky Horror Show

May 18 to June 7 — Hamer Hall

By Lochlainn Heley

The cult classic that sported generations of musical misfits returns to Melbourne at classic festival venue Hamer Hall. Its cast includes Jason Donvan as Frankenfurter, Stella Perry as Magenta, Leonardo Malcom as Rocky, as well as Deirdre Khoo. Expect patrons in horror-camp dress-up, along with severely filthy looks if you don’t, at minimum, show up in 00’s eyeliner. Perfect for an end of assignments detox!

The Length of a Moment

Written by Simran Khera

I want to believe in shame

That acquiesces when faced with these memories:

5, and lying on the sofa in front of the tv

Amongst sips of my first coke

Finding sleep in the wooden sounds of cricket

Seeing the soggy grass in dreams

Only to be awakened by my father’s words Spoken to the tv

13, and seeing my mother’s smile

Through clouds of flour

As she says no, no, like this And rolls a perfect, round ball of atta

To make a perfect, round roti

If my mistakes equate her crescent-shaped lips

I hope I forget the shape of spheres, yes,

The earth could fall flat, and I could walk off its edge

For this smile

19, and sitting in a lecture theatre

Hearing the names given to The 27 bones in my human hand

Which, in some years, might Hold a scalpel above a human heart And remember, for some heartbeats, The way it felt

To hold a pencil

To write a poem

To heal a heart another way

8, and waking to a 7am alarm

Turmeric in warm milk

Cereal in cold milk

I’ve grown taller overnight

I find the biscuit box in the laundry and Open it to find needles and thread

My mother lets down my hem

8:04am: I enter the hall as they say, Amen

12, and post raised voices, Clenched jaws, and open palms, I find a banana on my desk

Also, a cup of chai and two biscuits

Which I accept and so

We close our palms, unclench our jaws and Begin to speak in quiet voices again

20, and I will drive to Leo’s in Glen Iris

For their $8.99 blackberries

The aisles will be empty at this time so

I might attempt to dance a little to ‘Take on Me’ drifting down from the ceiling

On the drive home, I’ll eat a berry per red light and Make $8.99 stains on the steering wheel

31, and I worry

Will all my fruit be bought on sale?

Will my biscuit box hold biscuits?

Will my hand remember how to hold a pencil?

Will my rotis still be oval?

Will I still sleep to the sounds of cricket?

Will I run out of chai and biscuits?

I will place a banana on my father’s desk.

Artwork by Aqira Clark

Photography by Anthony Xiao

'Call home' by Ha Khoa Dang

Photography by Brian Schatteman

Photography by Yixuan Xiong

by Claudia Dean

by Claudia Dean

Photography by Louise Li

Orthochromatic intolerance Orthochromatic intolerance

Written by Eleanore Arnold-Moore

Flash of flu captured in coils

rewound, released, rewound

A week shuddering through interstitial libraries overexposed with silver shots pre-sensitised to overload. sight going grainy soak me in a pharmacy send me to the lab for evidence of my ailment suspended in my scarcity of salt

Veins filmy. Rise slowly

Lapse trail light across me

Soften the years falling in rays

curl into homespun heartbeat blurred through the shutters of this peekhole in time

The negative is static, the negative is mine but let me be treasured for my inconvenience my limits my tries

Illustration by Felicity Yiran Smith

Content Warning: References to alcohol

1973

Written by Michelle Yu

Lustrous white bodies, insect corpses

Hanging on the ironbark trees.

Sucked dry of their insect innards.

That was the month I met you, Summer of 1973.

Neon curls flounced over your shoulder as you

Slid your denim-flared ankles over mine, Reading your favourite crime mystery author

Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide

We watched space cruisers zap across giant movie screens in Space: 1999.

That was the last year you let me know you.

Before my alcohol-slurring cut through our youth, Bringing us to the end of the only time I really knew you.

Illustration by Jacques CA

Four Haiku

Written by Jovan Stojkovski

Coolness smells like smoke. Surfs of grass stuck in thin ice make stiller from still. the dry river howls sky, not crying but shouting the cat is upset.

Brown ribbons, flattened, wave idle to the sun’s beating — movement in the shade!

Bitter leaves, where is your home now?

Amber light falls

Illustration by Chelsea Pentland

March 10th

Written by Simran Khera

My sister and I

Made cakes in mugs

And ate sitting in the light

Of the tv, Wondering what bluebells

Smell like,

Before washing the cocoa

From under our nails And sleeping, I dreamt

I passed my driving test (I drove past our old house), The shower drain isn’t clogged (I didn’t check for flooding),

And the poetry reading had been fate (I am completed)

In the morning

I hear her leaving For school

As the washing machine beeps

And I think of the smell

Of the fabric softener

Which I think could be bluebell

Or maybe apple

And I worry, did I leave the kitchen

Light on all night?

When I open the fridge

Which apple looks the greenest?

Which thoughts are worthy of words?

When the cursor is blinking back at me.

Illustration by Harriet Chard

Champagne sloshed through her intestines

Content Warning: Themes exploring sexual consent, references to misogyny

Written by Ola Wallis

the thrashing sound of river rapids as she moved, Each movement was the violent swishing of brain fluid into her eardrums. She rolled her tongue, ca ke y . He was acidic and sour, cheap goon and saliva masked by syrupy home-brand orange juice. His stale breath crawled into her nostrils like a fruit fly

dry-shampoo littered her scalp in mounds like the dusting of paint flakes that blanket twitching arachnid corpses on an old window sill, the smell of her cheap body spray almost concealed the sweat, vape clouds, and that jug of spilt booze that plastered her clothes to her skin. S tic ky.

His lips smeared across her mouth as a rubber mannequin, He, the movie director. a beige-tasting polystyrene stranger She responded diligently running through the steps of her routine.

Uncertainty slithered and gnawed under her skin like a tick But pulling it out was impossible now, it pummelled into her vein, injecting toxins through its slimy palps imprisoned, (or was this liberation?) in promises, a tale to tell, the idea of empowerment? (its fat body wriggled with sick ecstasy) expectations that more of her flesh would be claimed.

As an empty doll. He pulled her string, and she sang for him the standard manufacture-tune. She lay contorted in her grotesque beauty, blank, awaiting approval

While he, a little toy soldier dressed in blue braced, his eyes fastened shut, trembling, he must execute the operation.

Two marionettes rammed together dissatisfied. Performing a Hollywood tragedy to a room crowded with invisible spectators.

Illustration by Raven Zhang

please line my pockets

Written by Stephen Savitsanos

I searched for God in my pocket–in the

very bottom

beside my loose change and lint–when my clumsy hand finally found him I scooped him up like you would running water to splash your face and brought him to my ear where he begged me to stop in a tiny voice but how could I when I turned the tables and for once in my life

I had him in the palm of my hand.

Content Warning: References to blood and death

Girlhood

Written by Gabrielle Lim

When the washing machine stopped singing, I carried its death like a stone in my pocket.

Like an awakening, like the smell of rust on my skin and blood-stained sheets. This body was never meant to hold so much absence. I am losing her again and again.

It’s the porch outside Grandma’s house before it was turned to dust and imagination. Jellied legs & chlorine-soaked spandex, that feeling when the water remains

though no one else can see it.

All I have left is her hands: the dry patch knitted into my palm—a reminder the freckle beneath the half-moon of my nail

the memory written into every wrinkle. I can still feel her in their quiver when she uses my fingers to spell out mercy.

I’m here. I hear you.

Illustration by Raven Zhang

Illustration by Ruisi Wang

R2R Bridge Lanes (1997)

Written by Banu Girotra

SIDE ONE

Old romantic fool :

While working on R2R, Matthew revisited some old negatives from when he was young and realised that most of the photographs he took were “from a distance.” He said “I saw these things and people that I loved, but left them untouched so that they would look as beautiful as they were.” The other band members thought that he was a bit of a “romantic” for doing so, and concluded that it would be best to open their last album with a track that reflects those feelings.

Telephone wires :

The bandmates have reflected on the secretive and intimate calls they used to have when they were young. Jonathan, the bass guitarist, expressed that “half of the fun came from the constant effort being put into having personal conversations in a family room.” In this song he sings acrowdbetweenthetwo,butforus,itwasjustmeandyou

Dear diary, my static love is:

Before Cassey played the drums, she used to confide her innermost intimate thoughts in her “dear diary” after hanging up on her one-sided love. She could tell her diary things she could never share with anyone else and only her diary knew that this love would never go anywhere.

SIDE TWO

Empty bottle of perfume:

The B-side of the album explores the abandonment one feels when they grow up, or rather grow apart from those they knew very well… sometimes even themselves. Matthew sings of a hint of the past I don’t quite remember but can’t forget anyway to emphasise how long it has been since things changed, yet still he holds that memory dear in a beautiful case like an empty bottle of perfume.

Airplanes:

The members collaboratively wrote this during their last world tour on the flight back home. It reminded the band of how far they had come from where they used to be—from little children on a playground making paper planes to flying “where paper planes don’t go,” Matthew said. The bridge of the song addresses how not giving up on their tiny dreams got them where they are.

Because we wanted to leave:

The members collectively decided on this song as their closing track as they bid their goodbye to their fans as artists. In the lyrics, they express the abandonment that came with Bridge Lanes’ success, and the gratitude for the journey as they left their comfort zone—their home(town). It was their trust in themselves and each other that got them through the multitude of red lights they encountered on the road, and on the way, found their new home: each other… and you.

Illustration by Alexi O’Keefe

Bleeding Marble: Demeter

Written by Rhylee L.

I am withered sweet child of mine the mortals cried blood and drank it ripped their flesh and ate it raw the greens turned septic plucked their leaves, severed lifeline majestic beasts, delicate critters dead of their last breath here lies the barren wasteland the other gods held my funeral.

When you bit his fruit was it filled with pulp? more palatable than a mother’s succulent love why did you eat his seeds, ever so pleasurably? was mine too blasé? you’ve grown fatigued of it.

The captor who took you away how could you let him whisk you off your feet dare you love him in pride my heart is forsaken.

My heart is forsaken dare you love him in pride whisk you off your feet how could you let him the captor who took you away.

Was mine too blasé? you’ve grown fatigued of it why did you eat his seeds, ever so pleasurably? more palatable than a mother’s succulent love was it filled with pulp? when you bit his fruit.

The other gods held my funeral here lies the barren wasteland dead of their last breath majestic beasts, delicate critters plucked their leaves, severed lifeline the greens turned septic ripped their flesh and ate it raw the mortals cried blood and drank it sweet child of mine I am withered.

Illustration by Harriet Chard

'Atlantic Summer' by Ciara Kirby

Content Warnings: Reference to dead animals, bodies, drugs, eating disorders

Creative Column: both sides now

Foxy and Ra

Written by Hannah Hartnett

I was small when I first brought them home. I kept them under my bed, and they spoke to me through the night.

“Good grass is tall,” said Foxy.

“Watch out for Foxy,” said Rabbit.

I said “yes, yes,” and laughed to myself, because no one would be watching out for anyone.

Ma and David complained about a smell, and one-day I came home from school to an empty under-the-bed. Foxy and Rabbit and Possum and Mouse were out on the rug looking up at me.

“Sophie.” Ma’s voice was careful. “Why are you keeping dead animals under your bed?”

“I’m not,” I said. Foxy agreed.

“You sure as fuck are,” said David. “They’re stinking out the whole house.”

“Don’t swear,” said Ma.

David smirked. “Your kid’s a freak, Melissa.” He bent down, so that we were eye to eye. “Are you killing them, you little freak?”

“Of course she’s not killing them.” Ma looked worried. “You’re not killing them, are you Sophie?”

“No,” I said. “I just find them.”

“Oh, you just find them.” David’s eyes were very bright. “Because that’s totally fine—

“It is fine.” Oskar spoke from the doorway. I hadn’t noticed him come in.

“It’s fine.” He continued. “It’s not that weird. People keep soft toys and people eat meat. Some people even taxidermy their pets.”

“Some people,” David muttered. He looked at us, his eyes wide with astonishment. “Some people. Not in my house. I want this shit out Sophie. No more pets or whatever you call them.”

“No more pets,” Oskar agreed. Ma nodded gratefully. //

“Sophie.”

Ma and David had left; Oskar was supposed to be helping me deal with the pets

“You can’t do things like this.”

“Why not?” I asked. “You said it wasn’t that weird.”

“It’s not— Oskar paused. “People get upset. Ma’s stressed. She doesn’t need more to stress about.”

I sighed. Everyone was all wrapped up; Oskar said we had to bury them.

“Promise me Soph, no more pets.”

“Promise”.

“Thank you.” Oskar smiled, rubbed my shoulder. We buried them in the backyard, and said goodnight.

David left Ma not long after they found the animals under my bed. She said she blamed me, though Oskar said she didn’t really blame me. I felt them for a long time, Foxy and Rabbit in the underground.

Jai is in the bath; I’m supposed to be job hunting. I squint at the screen.

Jai is taking a lot of baths these days. I’m sure he's using. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but he just spits back that I have an eating disorder. I don’t have an eating disorder; I’m just not good at digesting. I’ve tried to explain this to him, that my body rejects things. My stomach gets stressed, not knowing where food has come from. The animal, its life, a battery farm, a bullet in the head. Jai had laughed, suggested I take up hunting.

“Jai!” I knock on the bathroom door.

“Jai it’s been an age, I need to pee.” I can hear the tap running. Jai doesn’t respond. This isn’t unusual; he enjoys being selectively mute.

“If you’re doing the mute thing, I’m just going to come in.” I rub my eyes. This really frustrates me. The muteness, the running water.

“I’m coming in”, I say, opening the door. It is very humid. Jai is slumped in the bath, his eyes unblinking. “Jai!” I say, delving my hands into the water, dragging him out of the tub. He's skinny. I can see the track marks on his arms, spittle running down his cheek. His whole weight is on me. I sigh. The body is cold as a slab of salmon.

Jai had once told me that he’d become an addict alone. He was someone who spent a lot of time alone, and I had sometimes felt lonelier with him than in my own company. He had, I supposed, died alone too. I was in the room next door, no one had seen the drug stop his heart.

I drag him into the living room. He is still damp from the bath so I dry him down, dress him in his favorite clothes. I bring in blankets from our bed, and sleep next to him on the floor.

The first day we are shy together. Jai is very stiff, and I massage his hands to ease him. We are quiet, but he is tender. More tender than he used to be.

The second day, he is soft. I prop him up at the dining table and we eat meals together. At night I dress him in pajamas, and we lie in bed. It’s half-light when I hear his voice.

“Foxy was born a carnivore. He is all neat— teeth, claws.” I turn to face him. He continues to speak.

“Neat steps to flush Ra from his burrow. When he eats, he's like a nude. Raw and complete. Yacking down prey, as open to pain as a kid in withdrawal.” He sucks in his breath.

“Jai…”

“Ra is all quiver. His nose, body, heart. All of him born with a tremor. He loves the grass like the fox loves him, like worms love the fox. I’ve seen their bones together, bleaching in the sun.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen them together. There was nothing rising.”

“You don’t talk like this.”

Jai was usually monosyllabic, body language over words.

“Tell me more.”

“There was nothing rising.”

“What do you mean, there was nothing rising?” I frowned. Did he feel stuck here?

“I’m not trying to keep you here, Jai. You can go.” I move closer to him. I touch his face.

“You can go.”

He is silent. I turn out the light.

On the third day I wake to keys in the door. I’m in bed, lying next to Jai.

“Sophie!” yells Oskar. “Are you home?”

I’m silent. I hear him trek through the flat, pause at our door.

“Sophie” he repeats. “Are you in there?”

I sigh. It wouldn’t be unlike him to just walk in.

“Yes” I say weakly.

“Can you open the door?”

I say nothing.

“Okay, I’m coming in.”

Oskar opens the door. He stands at the entrance of the room, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Soph” he says softly. “Is that Jai next to you?”

“Yes” I say. Jai is covered in blankets, a mound. “He's not feeling so good.”

“You should get him up. Junkies can get bed sores you know.” He half smiles, half looks sad.

“No.” My voice is sharp.

“C’mon, it's 3pm. Besides, I need to talk to him.”

Oskar moves closer, pulls back the sheets. Jai lies still in his pajamas. Tall, skinny. Oskar recoils.

“Don’t freak out!” I say.

“Don’t…freak.” Oskar looks at me blankly, snaps out of it. “Sophie! That boy is dead.”

“Yes.”

“Oh my god.” Oskar sits on the bed, carefully avoiding Jai’s feet. “Oh my god. Sophie. We need to call the police. We need to say that you just found him.”

I nod, starting to cry.

“Soph. Ah god.” Oskar stands up again. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did he die? Drugs?”

I nod again, crying in earnest.

“Okay. Okay, I’m going to call the police right now. You tell them you’ve been staying with me.”

He leaves the room; I can hear him dialing.

I cry harder and move into the bed. Oskar is pacing around the kitchen, mincing his words to the police. I put my head on Jai’s chest. His heart is still, but I can feel my own thumping in my ears, pulsing through the two of us.

“Jai.” I say. He says nothing. After these past days I spent with his body, I’m reminded of my own. The chalk of my teeth, the minerality of my bones. Foxy and Ra and Jai, talking me through the night.

Illustration by Weiting Chen

'CHRONIC' by Helena Pantsis

Content Warning: Reference to blood

on developing/photo fragments

Written by Katrina Bell

Illustration by Olivia Sutherland

fold me / in half— after e.e. cummings

Written by Caitlin Fox

fold me in half place me in your back pocket

(i carry your heart with me; i carry it on my ass) check for me every ten minutes maybe five; i can lose myself as easily (whatever is done by me alone is your doing, my darling) take me out and smooth the creases put me under your pillow (i fear no fate) write a poem and run me under the laundry iron and too-cold water bottle your words on the top shelf of the bedroom closet

you know i can’t reach

The Fishwife

Written by Suzi Markel

A fishing boat turns slowly in the lake, its engine roaring, while two swimmers lower themselves into the silty water, clumsy in their diving gear. The boat sways near them, and fishermen in long, oiled coats peer over the stern. A sudden flurry of gore is thrown overboard and gulls dive from above with slick white bodies and wide eyes, searching for choice parts. The swimmers lurch away to avoid being caught in the slurry.

The man shouts, “You’ll come back in one hour?” He can barely be heard over the engine, and one of the fishermen waves them away. The woman treads water beside him, wary of the low-diving birds.

“Maybe we should wait and hire a boat,” she yells. He doesn’t reply, scanning the water below, and she tries again, “I think we should go back.”

He shakes his head, snapping on his diving mask. “Just a few photos. It’s easy money!” They swim further from the boat, hovering in masses of water lilies, and then they dive. A gaping hole in the lakebed identifies the cave mouth. Diving down, down, down, they descend into the deep well, its walls covered in trails of pondweed, abandoned fishing nets and crab traps snagged in the swaying green. Light still dapples through the entrance, but the divers flick on their flashlights, casting thin yellow beams down through the twilight. The passage opens into a wide, mossy cavern. Weeds take root there. The yellow light illuminates the space in a deeper green and casts mottled, rotten shadows over the rock. The divers glide over beds of thick grasses with barbed tips that warn hungry things to keep away. Fish trickle in from the lake above, huddling together for warmth. Water snakes find their way in, too, although the divers can’t see the stringy limbs, instead dismissing their iridescent stripes as flashes of lamplight. They continue through another passage, and it rises slightly, surfacing into an underground lake, ringed with a black shore and swarming with bats, and further back, a mound of faeces, built huge over time. It crawls with hungry, busy things that live and die in the bat’s stink. The divers wade from the water, clumsy and heavy. Sidewinder crabs swarm around their ankles.

“See?” The man pants and starts to take pictures. “Easy money. We’ll sell them to a magazine and make a killing.”

“What if that boat doesn’t come back?” the woman asks.

“It’s not like they’re going to leave us out here,” he says, preoccupied with a flurry of bats overhead. “We only paid them half, remember?”

She sighs, unconvinced, and looks around the cave, the yellow light illuminating scurrying things as she turns her head.

“Come on,” he says, “try to get a close-up on some of these bats.” She wrinkles her nose at the hot stink of excrement and instead wades along the shoreline. Above, worms hang strings of pearly mucus, still and shining, forming beautiful nets. Although she can’t see them, she imagines the worms sitting blindly above, waiting for twittering bats to fumble into the threads, stickier than a spider’s web. A chandelier in the underworld. The bats are camped higher in the rock, too high to see. Their fluttering bodies thump against each other like moths in the dark.

“That’s as good as we’re going to get in here, I reckon,” the man says. “Let’s keep going.”

“Don’t we have enough?” the woman asks. “And we’ve only got enough oxygen for a little bit longer. We need enough to get out again.”

“Come on, there’s at least one more cave.”

She follows him back to the water, and as they submerge, the bats swarm lower, filling the space in their absence. The cavern thins into a long passage and they swim slowly, in single file. Cold water filters up from the blackness. Nothing grows there, the pondweed shrinks back, and grasses have nowhere to cling. Cavefish, pale pink and slim, flick through the corridor. A weird glow pulses in the veins of a rock. A white, oily ooze that seeps from sharpened cracks in the earth. Like the very marrow bone of the rock. It makes the passage walls bloom like a light behind an eggshell, illuminating tiny membranes within. She swims slowly behind him in an underwater crawl, her eyes fixed on the back of his neck. Suddenly, a wiry current flicks up from below and wraps itself around her leg, pinning her against the glistening walls. A fish caught in a barbed hook. The corner of her face mask cracks slightly under the sudden pressure, tiny fissures splaying before her eyes. Rock pierces flesh instantly, and she bleeds in tiny ribbons into the water. The current releases her as quickly as it came, and she hurries along the passage to where it finally rises and opens again into a smaller lake.

The flashlights are the only source of light now, darkness engulfs them almost completely. The ceiling is low, with no dry bank to crawl to, and there is a heavy pressure to the air. Stalagmites grow as thick as trees and the ground sinks beneath their feet, spongy with algae. She scrambles to the shallows and lifts her bloodied foot from the water. White residue clings to the black rubber of the

flipper, like tiny mould spores or pollen that dry instantly in the air and drift away.

“Stop, stop,” she whimpers, “I got cut.” He turns to her, surprised, and focuses the flashlight on her foot.

“Can’t see anything. You sure?”

“I think there’s something lodged inside.” She twists her foot and hisses in pain.

“You’ve got to be careful. You’ve fractured the mask too,” he says, squinting at the glass.

“I hit the wall. The current was so strong. We’ve got to go back now.”

He stands, hunched in the low space. “I’m not done yet,” he persists. “Just take it easy. Go back if you want.”

She says nothing. He takes more photos, illuminating crayfish in the shallows, their spider-legs scrambling, and pink salamanders on the walls; they lift their blind snouts, sniffing before returning to hunt for cave crickets that twitch and give themselves away. She finds an old crab trap in the shallow water, washed away from the surface, and sits on the slimy plastic, watching him hunt for crustaceans scurrying in the walls. After a while, she examines her leg again, pulling the black wetsuit back to reveal the skin beneath. The skin is puckered and pink around the cut. A white liquid seeps out, burning a trail down to her toes. She pinches two fingers into the wound, hunting for a sliver of rock that must still be lodged inside. The pink skin turns lighter, almost white, and peels away easily. She pulls the sharp thing out, a shard of milky rock, and flicks it away. There is a grey, exhausted tinge to the flesh beneath, like the insides of a gutted fish. She pulls the wetsuit back over her leg and rests her head in her hands, watching as pale-bellied toads and axolotls grow brave and clamber around her legs, swirling algae in the half-light. The little beasts seem to turn their blind, black-eyed heads up at her as if in greeting, their tubular antlers quivering. She watches their thin veins throb through pearly flesh, blue innards hanging heavy. Finally, she moves, stretching out her stiffened legs and checking a dial on her shoulder.

“We’ve got half an hour left of oxygen,” she says. The pale creatures waddle away again to sit with toothless mouths gaping, waiting to trap shut over smaller things floating through.

“Let’s go,” he replies, finally satisfied. “I’ve got enough.”

The divers swim back the way they came, continuing that slow crawl through the black water. She finds herself staring at the reflection of her own eyes in the cracked glass, catching fractured movement in the ghostly blinks and feathery eyelashes. They reach the narrow passage again and switch off their dimming lights, the batteries waning, and the narrow walls have light enough to see by.

The sudden space below again seems to have its own gravity, and she hangs back, afraid of the dark draw from below. Thin currents again curl upwards, hungry and searching. They rush over him, and he is driven high into the tight pinch of the ceiling, his oxygen tank wedged in the rock. The camera breaks free of its strap and swirls

down through the water. She flounders forward and scrabbles at him, trying to free him. He wrestles her away, pointing down into the dark where the camera has fallen. Bubbles of air mass around them as they bobble at the ceiling. Then, desperate, she dives. The trench is deep. The sticky, glowing ooze seems to grow thicker as she swims deeper, the glow seeping into the water. The space narrows too, and her body grazes and slides against the rock. Body slick and eyes wide, she searches for the lost camera. Finally, she finds it. Glass cracked and flooded, it is nestled in a space where the rock walls press together, almost too small a space to squeeze through. She struggles to get it out and, in her desperation, is torn on the jagged walls. The water turns a misty pink, and the rock-marrow seeps into flesh.

She opens her eyes and finds that the squeezing trench has relaxed open into a bright bulb of light. Her face mask is abandoned, the glass shattered on the fine, pale sand. The oxygen tank is discarded, floating somewhere above. The broken camera is clenched uselessly in her fist, and she looks at it idly, its significance almost forgotten. Though there is a hazy confusion in her brain, she finds it not difficult at all to stay awake. Blinking around at the suddenly bright space, she realises that breathing isn’t that difficult either. Something feels different in her body, but she can’t quite identify the source, like pins and needles paralysing a limb. She gazes across the silty sand beneath her cheek and sees brown stalked insects, copepods, wind tiny trails to and fro. Millipedes and centipedes roll out like strands of jewels and looking upwards, iridescent blue fish circle slowly around her head. Strange long sounds, like sighing, roll through the water, coming from elsewhere in the glow.

A long time has passed. The man hangs, drowned, his body pinned to the rock at the trenches peak, the oxygen tank still wedged in the crevice. A figure rises from the haze. Her face is bare, her eyes are ringed and dark. Skin, like the pale hair flowing from her head, floats around her in white, willowy shreds, revealing pale pink, silvery flesh within, as the underside of a fish. She examines his unmoving face with small interest. Obscured by the diving mask, she can’t distinguish his expression beneath. He will soon be eaten away by fish and crawling creatures, his carcass a welcome feast for the cave-dwellers. Consoled, she gifts him the broken camera, hanging it around his neck like an offering. Now she is unsure. Something urges her up and out towards the air and light, a curiosity to see the world above with different eyes. Maybe she will, someday, she considers. But something else draws her downwards, into the pearly deep. Where others are waiting. Where it is darkest. Where tiny white particles of dead things hang like stardust. And she is decided: she dives. She is where it is heaviest. Where the pressure of the earth crushes ribcages and punctures hearts. She is where a swift release of air will tear muscles from their bones to drift in the still water. And where she is, she is not afraid.

Illustration by Arielle Vlahiotis

Farrago's Pride Month Reading List

Farrago’s Pride Month Reading List!

Farrago’s Pride Month Reading List!

In Collaboration with UMSU Queer and the Unimelb Book Club and students!

In Collaboration with UMSU Queer and the Unimelb Book Club and students!

QUEER TEARS

Where are you going to cry?

Illustration by Tina Tao

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.