Acknowledgement of Country
As our editorial terms come to a close, we would like to express our gratitude to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation on whose land our office is located. It is the land upon which we have spent this last year creating Farragos, running Radio Fodder, gathering as a Media Collective, and finding joy and community in each other.
It is also land that was stolen, unjustly, and whose Traditional Owners were dispossessed, their rights to Country remaining unrespected to this day.
In 1853, a university was built upon that colonised land. A university which paid lipservice to certain higher ideals of social progress and scientific discovery, but which throughout its history and up to this day has so often and so horribly failed to do so.
In 1925, a student newspaper began at that university. It, too, aspired to lofty values from its conception. And while it has had its moments, its periods where it stood with historic struggles for land rights and racial equality, it, too, has not consistently lived up to this mission.
In this year of all years, a year of tragedy and community, of the old resurfacing and new precipices emerging, it has been a time to reflect on these intertwined histories. More importantly, it has been a time to recommit to the perpetual task of being better, of always looking toward a future where the Traditional Owners of these lands finally see their sovereignty recognised.
Beyond the Wurundjeri people, we would also like to extend our respects to the Boonwurrung, Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung peoples, on whose land this University also operates.
Contributors
Editorial
Office Bearer Reports
Pro-Palestine protesters occupy UniMelb professor’s office over ties to Israeli university
Sophie He
OPINION: The refugee encampment is closing, but the fight for justice is not over.
Reema Ababneh
Pork Crackle for the People: An Interview with the Founder of the Victorian Bánh Mì Appreciation Society.
Sunday O’Sullivan
Adrift in a Painted Sea
C.M.Simmons
Catharsis
Eric Xie
In all probability
Nimrada Silva
Self-destructing
Pluto Cotter
Pulling out Pink
Callum Weir
If only we were old and wrinkled, and had only a few days left, I would not be so afraid
Nimrada Silva to the girl who was crying on the train
Michelle Yu
On Being Conservative
Jocelyn Saunders
Expectations
Nadine
Aspen eyes
E.U.Woods
Remembering my childhood_ Ice cream
Michelle Yu
When I Lived For The Second Time
Thomas Worsnop
My Heart Has Never Known How to Sense
Danger
Paul Luckhart
Hand wash only
Eleanor Litras
Featured photography
Ashley Ann Tan
Jessica Fanwong
Dane Van Der
Emerald Smith
Sometimes Diamond
Jubilee Is the Only Thing That Makes Sense
Dom Lepore
Sublunary
Jesse Allen
A Very Long Goodbye All At Once
Alain Nguyen
Yakult
Jayden Seah
When We Were Young and the Capitalisation of Nostalgia
Madeline Barrett
Dear Thomas Pynchon
Fergus Sinnott
The Art of Parties: Silk and Romcoms
Aditi Acharla
sylvia plath wearing
Saint Laurent.
David Surace
Goodbye William
Claire Le Blond (MUSC)
Chasing That Feeling: The River of Stones
Lani Jaye
One Unimelb Year: Semester 2 – SWOTVAC bluehour
One Unimelb Year: Semester 2 – End of Exam Period bluehour
Home is Cipta Theatre Company at their Belonging Showcase
Claire Le Blond
Finding identity and voice through English
Shixin Wang
Large Mirage are Keepin’ it Groovy!
Sabine Pentecost
EDITORS
Gunjan Ahluwalia
Jessica Fanwong
Joel Duggan
Kien-Ling Liem
COVER
Adam Dinh-Vu
MANAGERS
Disha Mehta
Emily Hope
Harrison George
Hayeley Yeow
Phoebe Sava
Ruby Grinter
Stephen Zavitsanos
Weiying Lu
CREATIVE SUBEDITORS
Aastha Agrawal
Abbie Gatherum
Aditi Acharla
Ailene Catherine Susanto
Amelie Staff
Ava Marlow
Bronte Lemaire
Charlotte (Charli) Davies
Cushla (Cush) Scanlan
Emily Couzins
Emily Ta
Fantine Banulski
Felicity Smith
Fergus Sinnott
Isaac Thatcher
Jaymie Nohejl Willis
Jo O’Connell
Kartiya Ilardo
Kaz Bueman
Ling Zhu
Mary Hampton
Matthew (Matt) Chan
Owini Wijayasejara
Pamela Piechowicz
Penelope Toong
Sophia Voukelatos
Sophie He
Veronica Kwong
Victoria Winata
Wei Si (Erica) Liu
Yuanmei (Sharlin) Feng
Yu Zhong
COLUMNISTS
bluehour
Lani Jaye
CONTRIBUTORS
CONTRIBUTORS
Aditi Acharla
Alain Nguyen
Ashley Ann Tan
Callum Weir
Charlie Simmons
Charlotte Fraser
Dane Van Der
David Surace
Dom Lepore
Emerald Smith
E.U.Woods
Eleanor Litras
Elle Harkaway
Eric Xie
Helani Munidasa
Jessica Tran
Jocelyn Saunders
Michelle Yu
Nadine Reichardt
Nimrada Silva
Oscar Marklund
Paul Luckhart
Pluto Cotter
Tom Worsnop
Zefang Cui
Madeline Barrett
ILLUSTRATORS
Amber Liang
Chelsea Pentland
Emma Bui
Felicity
Harriet Chard
Indigo Jessell
Jennifer Nguyen
Lauren Luchs
Leilani Leon
Letian (Lydia) Tian
Maleea
Thomas Weir-Alarcon
Yilan Tao
Zarif Ali
NON - FICTION
SUBEDITORS
Amelie Staff
Aroma Imran
Asimenia Pestrivas
Audrey Goodman
Bella Farrelly
Chamathka Rajapakse
NON - FICTION STAFF
WRITERS
Aroma Imran
Ayva Jones
Chiaki Chng
Elizabeth Browne
Elizabeth Pham
Fergus Sinnott
Jayden Seah
Ledya Khamou
Maria Quartel
Pamela Piechowicz
Rashdan Mahmood
Zoe Quinn
PHOTOGRAPHY
Alain Nguyen
Chatarina Hanny Angelita
Teja
Nirmalsinh Bihola
Piper Jones-Evans
Yurong Xu
REPORTERS
Alan Nguyen
Anastasia Scarpaci
Annie Karkaloutsos
Arjun Singh
Ayva Jones
Billie Davern
Buena Araral
Chelsea Browning
Finley Monaghan-Mc
Grath
Hanane Seid
Ibrahim Muan Abdulla
Mathilda Stewart
Meagan Hansen
Mia Jenkins
Pryce Starkey
Ravin Desai
Romany Claringbull
Sam Irvine
Sana Gulistani
RADIO FODDER PRODUCERS
Anushka Mankodi
Dom Lepore
Isolde Kieni-Judd
Jack Loftus
Tom Weir-Alarcon
SATIRE
Aaron Agostini
Alexia Shaw
Eden Cater
Jasmine Bills
Jonathan Chong
Lucinda (Lucy) Grant
SOCIAL MEDIA
Duy Dang
King Shi
Larissa Brand
Thanh Thanh An Quach
Alan Nguyen
VIDEOGRAPHY
Christina Arthur Deidre Chloe
Nirmalsinh Bihola
This magazine is made from 100% recycled paper. Please recycle this magazine after use.
Farrago is the newspaper of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU). Farrago is published by the General Secretary. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of UMSU.
If you want to raise an issue with the union and with the university, please contact the President and General Secretary.
president@union.unimelb.edu.au secretary@union.unimelb.edu.au
editorial
Jessica:
I can hardly believe that this is the last editorial I’ll be writing for Farrago. This year has truly flown by too fast – amid the constant crunch for print deadlines, stress of venues searching for launches and trying to avoid going insane from the infamous slack, I hardly noticed that a year has gone by. It was amazing seeing the incredible work of all the contributors and Farrago team members and seeing everyone grow as writers, subbies, etc. It has been a true joy to work with all of you and I will miss it next year! Best wishes to the incoming 2025 editors, keep Farrago and the media department flourishing!
Kien-Ling:
It’s the final edition! We’ve done it! It’s over! It’s a bittersweet communion of relief and a sadness that it’s over. A sense of pride over what we’ve managed to do in the short span of a year and the humbling sobriety that we’ve inherited something that has existed since 1925. At most, Farrago gives me an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the people I’ve met and the ability for me to channel all my creative energy into the dying form of print magazine. I loved doing this job because it was never initially about UMSU or being in a student council, though that experience has taught me much about community. I loved doing this job because I got to read other people’s writing, as I believe it to be the rawest form of self-expression. I loved this job because I love grammar and spelling. I loved this job because I love making spreadsheets. Endings are never easy but I’m grateful that my co-editors are here to share the ending with me.
Thank you for trusting us with your words and art and anything you had to say. I hope we honoured them. I will miss my desk. I still won’t let anyone read my writing.
Joel:
This has very possibly been the most fucked up year of my adult life and I thought about resigning so many times but, now that we’re here, on the precipice, the final edition another notch in the belt, I’m so glad that I stuck through. Real “remember this for the rest of your life” type stuff lol.
I’ve heard too many horror stories from years past of Farrago Editor teams where everyone could barely work together and fucken hated each other by the end, which is why I am so grateful to my co-Editors, Ling, Gunjan and Jessica, for being the most hardworking, empathetic and passionate team I could ask for. Please know I never took you for granted, and thank you for putting up with me for so long.
There are a lot more people to thank, but you can read about that in a few pages. We’ve also got a few more OB Reports than usual, probably because people felt bad about not submitting them consistently this year lol. And there’s some other cool articles in the news section as well, very local, topical stuff. I hope you enjoy.
This is probably the last time you’ll ever hear from me in a Farrago. Much love, it’s been a good one.
Gunjan:
I can’t believe it’s all over—one year, six editions! It’s been a whirlwind of late nights and barely any sleep, last-minute illustration hunts, and, let’s be honest, my grades taking a hit. But what a journey it has been!
Working alongside my three amazing co-editors and the incredible design team has been nothing short of a privilege. I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you for your patience every time I missed a printing deadline because of my (endless) procrastination. I have so much love for you all <3 Thanks to everyone who contributed to Farrago/ Fodder or was involved with the Media department in any capacity, you all quite literally keep the department alive.
Thank you for an unforgettable year!
2024 EDITORS! THANK YOU FROM THE
News Team
There was a point in May of this year where we had a team of reporters up in Canberra with me to cover the federal budget but also a team of reporters back in Melbourne covering the Palestine protests on campus and I had to manage both of them at once and it was honestly a bit insane but kinda fucking awesome as well, looking back. A testament to everything we went through this year and all the work we put into covering these important, national-level stories.
Thank you to you all for dealing with pretty consistently chaotic subedits and generally fucky publication timelines.
Nonfiction Team
I formally apologise for all the times I sent emails at very odd hours and gave my writers a mere week to write their pieces. I take responsibility for the very real possibility that I caused your burnout. I also apologise to some of my sub-editors for sending them the most cracked pieces with paragraphs of my extremely specific notes. For those who have submitted pieces consistently throughout all six editions, it’s been beautiful to see you grow as writers and as people. I loved watching the trajectory of your life through your words. Thank you for creating something special with me.
Creative Team
Massive thank you to all the subbies and contributors of the creative team for being on the constant churning wheel of creativity. We have published a whopping 150 pieces across 6 editions (including giving detailed feedback to all rejected pieces!) and that is only testament of the immense passion and dedication from the incredible team we’re lucky to have this year. Thanks for being an epic team, keep the creative juices flowing!
Design Team
I have so much love for all of you <3. I promised myself I’d give you more time for illustrations with each edition, but somehow, that plan always slipped through the cracks. Hopefully you all don’t hate me :p Even so, we’ve created six editions together, and none of them would exist without your incredible talent and hard work. Thank you for a wonderful year!
Media Collective
The big one – everyone that has contributed to the Media Department this year, whether it be in the pages of Farrago, the airwaves of Fodder, or whatever else. You, the Media Collective, make up this department and you’re what it’s all for at the end of the day. In particular, this year we have come to really rely on and appreciate the efforts of our Managers, who oversee certain teams on our behalf. Lauren and Harrison, you revived Radio Fodder and we will never forget you for it. Nathan and Angela, you made the nothing that was Farrago Video into a social media empire. Stephen and Irene, your photography exhibition was probably the best UMSU exhibition any of us saw this year – a true testament to student creativity and to your own organisational skills. Hayley and Ruby, there’s literally nothing
day after day – congrats on beating the 100 review record from last year! Emily, Satire just slayed this year – too many good headlines and it was a joy to see some long-form satire return to our pages. Phoebe, under your stewardship, our Instagram grew by over a thousand followers and now we actually have a TikTok. Disha, you have always been so understanding of our messy printing timelines and general chaotic vibes and still pulled off so many flagship events despite it all. Maria, we literally just made up a Manager role for you this year because we needed to direct your passion somewhere and even though you fucked off to Britain halfway through, you still made the most of it.
It’s so rare to have such a solid Manager team in the Media Department, but literally everyone killed it this year. They are very much the reason we were able to accomplish everything we did this year and the Media Collective would be all the poorer without them in it.
Mary Chan
Mary occupies a little position in UMSU called “Student Representation Coordinator,” which means she kinda supervises all of the OBs, including us. This job is perhaps most akin to a kindergarten teacher dealing with a particularly unruly bunch of kids, where you’ve gotta tear them off each other, scold them, and on occasion send them to the naughty corner. We hope that at least us Media OBs have behaved well this year.
On a more serious note, this year Mary was thrown into an altogether pretty shitty and unforgiving role, but has still always managed to make time for us Media OBs and saved our lives on many an occasion. Lots of love, Mary!
Josh Davis
It’s pretty rare for a Farrago Editor to stick around much once their term is done because you’re pretty fucked in the head by the end of it. But for some reason, Josh Davis stuck around – as an UMSU staff member, as a Returning Officer, and as a friend. Through the entire year, he has been there to answer our questions, provide random, inexplicable tidbits of information, and to chase up people when we couldn’t be fucked doing it ourselves. For all these reasons and more, he is deserving of his own section in these acknowledgements.
Now, for the love of God, can someone please tear this man away from UMSU permanently? It is on sight if I still see him around Building 168 next year.
UMSU Communications, Marketing & Events
CME is a big fucken department, which means there are a lot of people to thank! Thank you to the erstwhile but much loved JJ, who saw us through Summerfest and got us the Amphitheatre booking that would allow for Fodder Tuesday. Thank you to Millie and Caro, who filled JJ’s shoes with aplomb and have just generally been both lovely to get to know and work with. Thank you to Dee for running the show and being way too cool than a marketing professional has any right to be. Thank you again
to Josh Davis who for some reason is now a Comms casual. Thank you to all the people that run Farrago distro every Thursday.
AVMelbourne
Best group of blokes in UMSU! Helped us out with so many events, including with Fodder Tuesday (what others may call “Bites ‘n’ Bustles”) each week. For our Battle of the Bands, they did a full-on stage set-up that just kicked ass. We hope they’re able to do more live music next year!
And a very special thank you to Isaac, the guy who literally built the Radio Fodder station and who over the course of this year has always been around to lend a helping hand, set up equipment, or have a beer with. A true UMSU legend.
UMSU General Secretary
The relationship between the Media Department and the Secretariat (Farrago’s legal Publisher, who approves all content for publication) is never an easy one. Fundamentally, we embody two different, often competing impulses within the organisation – on our end, journalistic freedom, on the other, legal compliance. Like all years, this year was not without its moments where the tension between these ideals reared its head. But we’re grateful that our GenSec this year, Kevin, was fastidious in submitting OB Reports and punctual in approving content, often whilst under all sorts of otherpressure from within UMSU and in his Law degree. GenSec is an unenviable position and we’re grateful for all of Kevin’s efforts and commitment, and ultimately, for being the one who has to take legal responsibility for anything we publish so we don’t have to (lol).
Our OB Colleagues
Barely any of you submitted your OB Reports, but that’s okay, we love you all anyway. Shoutout to GenSec, Clubs, Welfare and Activities for pretty much always submitting your reports. Shoutout to all the OBs we collaborated with this year in other ways as well – Justine for getting us that extra money for a Southbank launch, Amy from Activities and Josh and Divyanshi from Welfare for running Bites ‘n’ Bustles every Tuesday with us, Akanksha and Micaela from Women’s for being lovely people and giving us money out of their budget,.
The pubs of Melbourne
We have cast a pretty wide net with the pubs that we’ve frequented and held events at this year. The Clyde remains a true stalwart, but unfortunately got a bit too small for our launch parties a few months into the year. Evie’s picked up the launch party banner after a while and has treated us lovely, with their DJ decks and conspicuous cocktails. Creatures of Habit on Brunswick St has gotta cop a mention for being Radio Fodder’s go-to haunt and for being run by the sick cunts that are Fran and Brad. And happy hour at the Evelyn Hotel has seen many of us through some dark days this year.
And hey, maybe one day the new Ida Bar will actually be done and they can be thanked too!
Kosdown Printing
We met these guys for the first time at their offices in Port Melbourne all the way back in January and they were justimmediately so receptive to all the things we wanted to change about the look of Farrago. Since then,
they’ve printed us probably hundreds of thousands of pages of Farrago, amongst other things – and how good do those pages look!
In particular, thank you to Andrew, who has been our point of contact with Kosdown this year and who has endured many stressful, last-minute calls asking when the latest we can send them an edition is – and took all of them like a champ.
2023 Media OBs: Josh, Carmen, Weiting and Xiaole
We thanked Josh already, but of course we need to share some love with our other predecessors in Carmen, Weiting and Xiaole. Although you have all likely moved on to bigger and better things since 2023, we appreciate the time you spent preparing handover last year and answering any little questions of ours that popped up overour terms. We hope you’ve all been able to find peace, happiness and success since your time with Farrago – and we hope that we will be joining you in that soon!
2025 Media OBs: Muan, Marcie, Sophie and Mathilda
This time next year, you will join the ranks of people who edited Farrago and survived. Before you get to that point, you will probably experience the entire breadth of emotions that a human is capable of and have to overcome challenges that most experienced professionals don’t know how to deal with, let alone a group of four twenty-somethings doing this for the first time. It will be hard, but we hope you come to love it the same way that we did, at least most of the time. And we’ll always be there for you when you need.
(Start booking your therapy sessions now and remember that substance abuse is probably not the best move, generally speaking.)
Below Earth team
So Above Water couldn’t happen this year so we moved underground. We rejoiced in the underground poetry and subterranean music, and buried ourselves in basement art. But that’s all good, because often the best things in life never see the light of day. However, our little cheesy competition, with a tinge of secret society, has sprung up with a pure mission to unearth these hidden seeds. We extend our thanks and gratitude to all the artists, writers, musicians, photographers who contributed their artworks; all the events, editorial, marketing, designs team members and eager volunteers who dedicated their time and effort to making Below Earth happen. Thank you and BE creative!
And everybody else! Including…
• Victoria Winata & Michelle Yu for being unofficial temp subbies
• The cheap vegan meals at Don Tojo’s
• Responsible benzodiazepine usage
• Madi and her anthropology crew, whose ethnography of Radio Fodder made us sound way cooler than we actually are
• Alan the security guard, for his staunch support of Fodderthon
• The Lygon St Tobacconist
• Muan’s communal Media Office vape
• Aroma Imran and Adam Dinh-Vu for designing front
WELFARE
Well, this is it. Our last Farrago report as Welfare Office Bearers. We've tried to provide an overview below of what we've focused on in 2024. We are still your Welfare Officers until November 30th, so if you need anything at all, just reach out.
UNION MART
Friday of Week 12 marks the end of Union Mart for 2024. Running Union Mart has become an indispensable part of our lives, we've made our closest relationships here, we've met the nicest people, our team have come together to give our time and effort towards helping others.
This is not to say it has been easy, we have seen students without a home due to rent, students struggling to feed their children, students unable to afford period products, and so many other things that have become normalised at our university. Structural change is needed to fix issues of this magnitude, as was detailed in the Cost of Living Report.
In 2024, we expanded Union Mart from 2 days to 5 days at Parkville serving 150 students each day, expanded to Tuesdays at Southbank, introduced the Points System, and introduced the Reserve Fund. As of Week 12, the Welfare Office Bearers secured an industrial fridge and freezer alongside 7 new cupboards to expand the range of items offered next year. As of Week 12, we have served around 14,000 students.
Thank you to each and every customer who has come this year. We have loved meeting and chatting with you. Thank you to the nearly 500 volunteers who keep us afloat with their tireless effort, time, and hard work. Without our volunteers, literally none of this would be possible.
HARM REDUCTION
In 2024, Welfare Office Bearers revived the Safer Partying Initiative. In close collaboration with the team at SSDP UniMelb we have provided two Harm Reduction workshops providing a one hour presentation on safe drug use and free tokens for multiple use drug testing kits. We recognise that drug use is a fact of life for many of our community and, whilst we do not condone substance use, we must seek to minimise the harm this has on our students by educating and informing.
WELFARE BRUNCH AND DINNERS
In 2024, UMSU Welfare collaborated with UMSU Activities for semester one to run the highly successful Bites and Bustles. For the entirety of the year, UMSU Welfare has run its Welfare Brunch each Thursday to provide a free meal to roughly 400 students each week. In the later part of semester two, UMSU Welfare introduced a new initiative, Welfare Dinners, which provided a free meal on Wednesday evening. These served as a social occasion with students and volunteers sitting around campus and socialising. This initiative was introduced following data from A Campus in Crisis which indicated students wanted free dinners alongside the usual brunches.
Further, through discussions with the University, we were able to source and hand out nearly $5000 in vouchers for Journeys Cafe on level 4 of the Student Pavilion.
COST OF LIVING REPORT
In 2024, the UMSU Welfare Office Bearers alongside Sara Guest, a PhD candidate here at UniMelb, developed A Campus in Crisis, a report of over 100 pages detailing how students at the University of Melbourne are suffering from rising prices. This report was based upon a survey run by UMSU Welfare with nearly 1700 responses. With no paid promotion of our survey, the high level of engagement demonstrates how much students resonate with the topic and want their voices heard.
This report has been utilised for advocacy at the state government with Joshua and Sara Guest speaking to the Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into food security. Further, it has been used in advocating to the university for reform on our campus.
LARGE SCALE EVENTS
In 2024, we ran two successful Stress Less Weeks providing a series of events and activities, from donuts to therapy dogs, aimed at reducing stress around exam season.
We have also been active in the planning and execution of cultural festivals on campus, such as Diwali and Holi. These events have been an incredible opportunity to bring our campus together and share rhe diverse cultures that make up our student community.
SUSTAINABILITY
Throughout 2024, UMSU Welfare has run a variety of clothing swaps alongside the University of Melbourne’s Green Impact Officer to provide students with free clothing alongside reducing the waste of new clothing purchases.
Further, UMSU Welfare has developed a strong working relationship with Foodbank Victoria with the dual aim of providing students with free essentials and minimising food being put into landfill.
MOVING FORWARDS
Whilst both of us are heartbroken that we won't be involved in Welfare next year, we are incredibly grateful for our time this year. Representing student welfare has been the driving cause of our life all year. Both of us will continue to fight for students in 2025, but in different roles. Senior volunteers, Filia and Kunal, will be taking the reins for Union Mart and it is in very capable hands.
Thank you to all of our team. However, a special shout out to Sonika and Filia who have worked relentlessly to keep Union Mart running smoothly. They have become defacto Office Bearers and are endlessly more capable than either of us. We love and appreciate them from the bottom or our hearts.
Much love, Joshua and Divyanshi
2024 Welfare Office Bearers
SOUTHBANK
2024 has been an encouraging journey for the Southbank Team. We might be a small lean team of 3 ladies, but we fight hard for Southbank students to be well-supported through social and welfare events. We have seen how Southbank students have benefitted greatly from our iconic events such as brekkies, BBQs and our re-branded Survival Station (formally known as breadbin). New initiatives such as coffee voucher giveaways and collaboration with welfare team for Union Mart, have also proven to be integral in supporting Southbank students.
As part of our appreciation to students and staff for their incredible support throughout the year, Southbank held its very first big BBQ celebration in Semester 2, Week 12, where we provided catered food alongside our usual BBQ. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, and we were able to provide enough food for all the attendees. A huge thank you to the volunteers and 2025 committee members (refer to the group picture) for helping out with the event. Couldn't have done it without them!
Thank you to everyone who have been with us in 2024! It is a bittersweet feeling to be concluding our time with UMSU, but just know that the 2025 committee is super lovely and ready to serve the Southbank students in the coming year.
Till next time, Ariel, Felicity and Justine Southbank Office Bearers of 2024
CLUBS AND SOCIETIES
Guys… it’s the final Farrago OB Report…. It’s crazy that we’re already at the end of our term here at C&Sit seems to have flown by.
Since the last edition, we held our Clubs Council and the C&S Committee for 2025 were voted in! Also important to note that we were highly impressed by the turnout for clubs council this year, we pretty much filled out an entire lecture theatre!
As exam season is in full swing, the C&S office is getting quieter, giving us a chance to reflect what we’ve been up to this year. Despite our limited budget this year, we are super proud of us for being able to give back to the club execs by still running our Exec Mixers and Clubs Awards Night. On top of our usual club and OB admin stuff, we’ve passed a new Club Affiliation Process that should be implemented next year which we hope will make it easier for people to affiliate new clubs. And the department’s biggest project is the development of a Grievance Procedure for club members and events — we hope that have to finalised before our term ends, but either way we are super proud of the work that was put in.
We both have had a lovely time in office - it’s been hard, fun, frustrating, rewarding and beautiful all at once.
With all our love,
Azalea & Hanny
ACTIVITIES
~43 events later ... We may be feeling the burnout, but if anything, the plot has only thickened. This year has been packed with unforgettable highlights—from rocking out with cover bands like Babba and the Queen Killer Experience to catching Old Mervs, Winnie Lane, and Lucy Lorrene earlier in the year. We’ve explored countless venues, dabbled in a variety of activities, and, let’s be honest, probably had one too many drinks along the way. But it wasn’t just the events that made this year incredible—it was the people. Our department thrived on the energy and enthusiasm of everyone involved. Thanks to this collective effort, we were able to serve around ~20k meals. With the cost of living crisis and rising food insecurity, all we can do is try our best, and this year, we did just that. A massive round of applause to all the volunteers, committee members, and staff who put their time, energy, and spirit into making it all happen. And, of course, a shoutout to the students who showed up and made every event memorable — you are the reason this department exists.
Next year? Let’s just say some big things are in the works. See you silly elephants soon, Amy (your tired outgoing ‘24 & excited incoming ‘25 OB)
Pro-Palestine protesters occupy UniMelb professor’s office over ties to Israeli university
By Sophie He
Members of the University of Melbourne community on Wednesday 9 October conducted a protest in the office of a University academic affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, demanding that the University sever ties to Israeli universities and implement an academic scholarship for Palestinian students.
The sit-in was supported by activist group Unimelb for Palestine and directed toward Steven Prawer, a physics professor and academic lead of the Jerusalem-Melbourne joint PhD program.
The sit-in occurred around midday in Prawer’s office in the North Wing of the David Caro Building. Protestors wearing face masks and keffiyehs left the office after the University gave an official direction to move on at 1:20 pm. Participation appeared to be in the tens.
After entering the office, protesters hung a Palestinian flag over the doorway and covered the walls and desk with pro-Palestinian material. Students posted their demands to an adjacent office door, asking that the University of Melbourne sever its ties with Israeli universities, specifically the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The demands allege that Hebrew University is “partially built on and actively occupies stolen Palestinian land,” condemn its ties to the Israel Defence Forces and request that the University of Melbourne implement a scholarship program for Palestinian students, noting the University's existing research programs with Israeli universities.
"No such support exists for Palestinian students and we demand that the University rectifies this.”
The posted demands also include “that UniMelb implements a scholarship for Palestinian students … At present, UniMelb offers scholarships in honour of Zionists and in support of research at Israeli universities … No such support exists for Palestinian students and we demand that the University rectifies this.”
Once the sit-in officially commenced at 12:40 pm, protestors demanded to meet with Prawer and participated in chants that accused the University of supporting genocide.
Approximately 30 minutes later at 1:20 pm, two police officers arrived outside Prawer’s office and issued an official move on directive to the protestors, stating that Prawer’s office was a private space.
At 1:25 pm, protestors announced their intention to comply with the order and subsequently left the building — but not before a protestor called out “Quick! Your shoelaces!” and made the officer look.
“UM4P continues to persist for our demands which include pressuring the University to abide by the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] movement,” says a Unimelb for Palestine spokesperson.
“Today’s action aligns with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel … This is not a shift in our protest for a Free Palestine but a continuation of the resistance against the University’s complicity in genocide.”
Unimelb for Palestine facilitated the Semester One Gaza Solidarity Encampment on South Lawn.
Outgoing Vice Chancellor Duncan Maskell condemned the protest action in an email to University staff and students the next day.
“If the people who were involved yesterday can be identified as University of Melbourne staff members or students, we will not hesitate to initiate disciplinary processes”.
“This type of behaviour is completely and utterly unacceptable and stands in direct opposition to the values we hold as a university”.
An open letter written by staff has since been published in Overland in support of the rights of students to protest and expresses alarm at the police intervention.
OPINION: The refugee encampment is closing, but the fight for justice is not over.
by Reema Ababneh
This opinion piece was written in the lead-up to the final day of the Docklands refugee encampment.
For nearly one hundred days, refugees have been camping and protesting outside the Department of Home Affairs in Docklands, demanding permanent protection from the federal Labor government. The refugees protesting are incredibly brave and are fighting for their lives.
Tamil refugee Rathy Barthlote is one of these refugees. Rathy and her family have been in Australia for twelve years, having fled the Sri Lankan government’s genocide of the Tamil people.
Barthlote hoped to find freedom in Australia, but has instead been met with the Australian government’s torturous and anxiety-inducing refugee policies. Refugees living in Australia lack access to vital government programs such as Medicare or subsidised higher education, and face institutional barriers to finding housing. They are forced into exploitative jobs, working long days at wages below the award rates, and without the protection of Australian job safety laws.
Rathy’s eldest daughter is nearing sixteen with no chance of going to university. Her youngest daughter begs to see her grandma, who has never had the opportunity to hold her granddaughters. Her mother now buries jewels in the garden in the hope that one day her daughter will be able to return home and wear the treasures of her family.
Rathy told me in tears how much she longs to be with her mum, who she hasn’t seen in eighteen years.
Rathy is one of around 8000 refugees left in limbo by the Labor Party, and one of many refugees at the 24/7 encampment.
This encampment represents an immense display of bravery by refugees in defiance of a Labor government that could deport them at any second. The government’s current refugee policy is not new – the Labor Party has a long history of brutalising refugees. It was the Keating government in 1992 that initially established a policy of mandatory detention. Only two years later, mandatory detention was made indefinite, meaning refugees with no documents, or even incorrect documents, could be imprisoned for life. In 2012, the Gillard government was responsible for reopening and expanding offshore detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island.
Today, when right wing parasites like Peter Dutton vow to slash permanent migration and refugee visas as a cure for the housing crisis, Labor goes along with this racist scapegoating, proving time and time again that they can deliver cruel and harsh borders. In fact, recently it was Labor MP Sam Lim who boasted that he “migrated to Australia through the proper way” after a visit to the refugee
encampment in Perth. This disgusting view echoes the common sentiment of the Labor Party, whose policy demonises refugees fleeing persecution, and positions them as scapegoats for the government’s gutting of social welfare services perpetrated by the ruling class government. This then allows the far-right sentiments of Dutton and the group of Nazis who harassed the encampment in August to be emboldened.
The far right’s arguments are the logical conclusion of the mainstream politics of nationalism and imperialism that institutions like the Labor party peddle and that are baked into the system we live in. Competing nation states necessitate the strict control of labour flow and hard borders. These political projects of hard borders normalise the brutality they necessitate and that is part and parcel of a capitalist system. But we cannot let this violence and cruelty be naturalised. Campaigners fighting for refugee rights have to decisively break with the likes of Labor Party scumbags and NGOs, who back them up and make apologies for their cruelty. The politics of the encampment is one of antagonism towards the Labor Party and of uniting the struggles of all oppressed peoples – Tamil, Palestinian or otherwise.
The refugee encampment and the accompanying weekly Friday rallies are a cry of rage and defiance after twelve years of torture and tragedy. They have continued in spite of all adversity; Mano Yogalingam, a 23 year old Tamil refugee, self-immolated on day 49 of the encampment. He fought for security and freedom in Australia since he arrived here at the age of twelve. Whenever possible, solidarity and support should be extended to the encampment and members of Tamil, Iranian and other refugee communities. Meeting and speaking to the organisers of the encampment is to see that, despite all the pain and trauma they have endured, they stay strong and continue to fight. They are some of the warmest and most courageous people I have ever met. This movement is important to support as we are all up against the rule of those who govern our lives with cruelty and violence. These protesters are standing strongly and staunchly against powerful institutions that have inflicted such barbarism upon them, and it's a great lesson that we have to fight every day for a society where borders don't exist.
The encampment will close on day 100, the 22nd of October. There will be a closing rally but this is not the end of the fight. Those of us who don’t face the uncertainties that many of these refugees face have no excuse not to scream and show up on the streets to fight for refugee rights.
Reema Ababneh is a member of Socialist Alternative.
Pork Crackle for the People: An Interview with the Founder of the Victorian Bánh Mì Appreciation Society
by Sunday O’Sullivan
Emerging late last year on Facebook and now numbering over 15,000 members, The Victorian Banh-Mi Society has become a cultural touchstone of Vietnamese food enthusiasts living across the state. The group’s posts mainly consist of reviews of shops and rolls, a rating, and photos that must be included, for verification.
The requirements for a post, whether a review or request for a store recommendation, to be accepted by the administrators are as follows:
“This page exists to rate, compare and discuss bánh mì. For a post to be approved, it is recommended that it includes;
- A review and rating of an establishment (with photo evidence)
- A question surrounding the appreciation of bánh mì (e.g. the importance of pâté, chilli, tiger roll, etc.)
- A region-specific query”
I asked the group’s founder, University of Melbourne student Darcy Constantine, to sit down for a chat about the group's rapid growth, the culture of niche Facebook groups, and his sentiments as a culinary connoisseur on the burgeoning gentrification of Melbourne’s food scene.
Q: What made you start a Facebook group about bánh mì?
A: Late last year, I was really in the mood for a bánh mì, and I kind of realised that Facebook's this almost undiscovered medium for our generation of getting
information on Melbourne-based, you could almost call them cultural rituals. Like, you’ve got, like, Blokes and Their Zinger Boxes. [This is an Australian Facebook group described as “Just a place where a King can gather and share their succulent Zingers.”]
I just wanted to find a group that discussed bánh mì, and the conclusion I came across was there was no active or substantial community at the time. So, I thought, fuck it, like as an absolute piss take. I’ll just create a group. But like low-key, I saw a gap in these kinds of groups.
Q: It’s interesting that you started this group only very recently. Now it’s grown so much. This group has a lot of members who are active, which isn’t special for Facebook, but the member-to-member posting ratio is extremely high. Personally, I’m a part of a lot of Facebook groups where I just lurk and I am there to simply observe.
A: Yeah, people are really engaging. I think I attribute that a lot to the initial posts of people in the group.
A few other food groups are really serious, whereas e veryone here, obviously in a culturally respectful way, is having a bit of fun with it.
Q: Those were mostly people that you knew?
A: Yes. Except Tobias.
Q: I am familiar with that name…
A: Well. He posts in clumps, he posted four times yesterday, and he really does eat them. He'll go to a
place and have like, two bánh mìs to thoroughly review. I read a lot of content, right? So I’ve grown to become very close with Tobias just through reading his work.
Q: Were you surprised when the page started getting members outside of the starting group? Obviously Tobias, but like the people that you know, like your circle of friends, who were posting heavily at the beginning? Do you think that like, part of its success could be word of mouth, do you think? Or could it be algorithmic? A:
A: I reckon when Facebook saw people growing, they started pushing it out to people, but I think there was a lot of word of mouth. Like, my mate works at a pub, and he once texted me, “there are all these blokes in here talking about it.”
Q: Do you think you were influenced to create a community from your time in clubs and societies? Darcy was the Melbourne Arts Student Society’s (one of the University’s biggest student clubs) Co-Sponsorship Coordinator from 2023-2024.
A: Probably not, not at all. I think with that it’s a group of people, we’re all studying arts, yeah, but it’s quite a diverse group of people. I think i enjoyed that. So I find I get a lot of joy, and find it pretty funny when people who wouldn’t usually interact do so through a certain shared affinity. So with our student clubs. I guess we love social aspects, but we all were brought together, I think it’s really, really cool, like maybe those are almost like a microcosm of that.
Q: Maybe more of a distant cousin of the clubs and societies crowd that we are intertwined with, because it was incredibly interconnected with that crowd at the start, 100% but now it’s just completely snowballed, hasn’t it?
A: I credit a lot of the success and, like, the setting of the tone, to the initial probably 300 Members, yeah, like, that kind of set the vibe, and then it’s been really hard to control the vibe since then, there’s been a few scandals and a lot of diversions from, yeah, the vibe I wanted to set out.
Q: You’ve had a couple instances of antisocial behavior, one that comes to mind is individual backlash to, like, people genuinely asking for recommendations. Was this something you anticipated with a benign group concept, reviewing bánh mì? Or do you think that, with any group that size, you’re gonna have backlash?
A: I actually enjoyed some really polarizing views in the group, when they weren’t aggressive. I definitely expected things to be polarising, like coriander, but I did not expect people to take it so seriously. I have so much appreciation for the food. And as a non-Vietnamese person, all I can do is appreciate. I see it as a little bit trivial, at the end of the day, it's a snack.
Q: Well, hey, it's a meal.
A: So for people to correlate their identity with consuming gargantuan amounts of chilli or coriander, I was just like, it's not that deep. It's interesting how a
pretty positive review, that’s just like, “This bánh mì was good. I love this place. Here was my experience.” is met with, “Why the fuck did you get pâté, you idiot?”
Sometimes you can tell it is joking, but then sometimes, like, by the language people are using, you’re like, Oh, you kind of believe in this strongly. And this group is, like, your outlet to kind of express your individual beliefs.
A particular instance comes to mind: a polarising response from a select few members to a query on halal bánh mì options. This was quickly shut down and a “statement” was issued by Darcy:
“Due to the blatant Islamophobia and rudeness in the comment section, I’ve decided to close the comments on the recent post about finding halal bánh mì in Melbourne. This group was created to spread positivity and share helpful information, not to foster hate or discrimination. Let me be clear: any form of discrimination will never be tolerated here. Let’s keep this space welcoming and respectful for everyone,”
Q: But like, what’s it like to kind of be the admin for that, because you’re the one removing posts and like, seeing all that?
A: Yeah, I think the most interesting intersection of people is people who are ethnically Vietnamese, and then Australians who feel that “barn may” has almost merged into Australian culture as well. And how they clash. So, people who kind of say that, the quintessential “barn may” is a pork roll served by a grandma with drawn-on eyebrows or whatever. Whereas then, traditionally Vietnamese people are like, no, like, “bánh mì” means bread, and you guys have imagined this understanding of food that is an Australian take, but, you guys still can’t claim bánh mì as yours.
But as the admin, I’ve just now developed the philosophy where I’m just, like, if it sounds offensive, removing it.
Darcy shows me the process in which an admin can accept or reject posts. He skims the review and accepts one to be posted in the group written (fairly positively) about a place in Belgrave.
Q: I appreciate that approach to it, because I think that if you get into semantics of, “Oh, this person’s just expressing an opinion, that opinion is maybe not expressed in the best way.” I don’t know if there’s room for that in a group about “Appreciation”. Do you think that you have power there in approving reviews as the admin?
A: I don't reckon, a lot of people in the group wouldn't know who I am. It says “admin” at the end of the day, no one knows the lore, yeah? I do have help, my girlfriend, my aunty and uncle, and this other guy I didn’t know before but who was really keen. From my perspective, the foodie groups on Facebook take marketing out of a business's hands. Especially with a group of this size, it's being shown to so many people, enthusiasts of the food, who would be their biggest customers.
Q: Do you agree with the sentiment that people care about the quality of the food over a business’s aesthetic choices, for example? Or have you noticed that even the connoisseurs are prone to opting for a specific kind of shop aesthetic?
A: I think probably the biggest topic of conversation is actually price. And you have two parties. You have the group of people who firmly believe that it should be under $10 and then you have the group of people who appreciate that cost of living is increasing, city rent is going up, and bánh mì, even though it's like a foreign food is still produced in an Australian gastronomic market. But then it does intersect. I think something I really do like about bánh mì is negative aspects of a restaurant almost turn to positive aspects, and the fact that people prefer, most people in the group or what I've seen, a dirtier store with a nonchalant server, which I think is really nice and refreshing, like when next door you do have a gentrified cafe.
I just noticed that people really respect a more authentic store. At the end of the day, I've just provided a platform and really let public discourse run its own thing. So I don't know if I'm really peripheral, if I'm propelling new ideas, or if I'm just sharing the spotlight on ideas that have always existed.
I mean 14,000 people. It's not that many, but I think I have captured most of the bánh mì enthusiasts within Melbourne. Luckily, a lot of them already have very firm beliefs that they're kind of in the group to defend.
Q: Firm beliefs?
A: If a review has been posted, I have to approve it. And I can see that like, it's just an attack on the company. It's not really a criticism of the food or even the service, and just seems just fishy. I don't approve it. Not to say that I don't approve bad reviews. I approve scathing reviews, but when they have merit.
Darcy and I try to cease talk about the negative members group. I pose him some final, brief, questions to round off our conversation…
Q: Thoughts on Roll’d?
A: I don’t think very highly of it, it has the merit of a Vietnamese food-chain… but at the end of the day it takes business away from Vietnamese small businesses.
Q: Do you think that if I posted a review of a bánh mì from Roll’d I would get flamed?
A: Yep, you would get torn to shreds, they are pretty bad, I think the group would take it as an insult because it's an insult to the cuisine. There is definitely a sense of snobbery, but it's not like there is no such thing as an inaccessible bánh mì.
Q: How do you imagine the group’s future?
A: Growth has actually slowed, we've kind of hit the mark. I want to add a mapping system in. People are constantly asking for recommendations in their area, I would love it if they could look that up in a system and not have to ask every time. Hopefully it gets bigger, but becomes more tolerant.
Q: Surely that’s bound to happen as growth slows and a status quo settles in?
A: True, there have been a few purges of members though… Mostly those who are racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic…. Even antisemitic.
Q: Finally, thank you for sitting to chat with me, Darcy. Could you please describe your perfect banh mi?
A: The founder of The Victorian Banh Mi Appreciation Society’s perfect bánh mì:
A roll bought before midday when the bread is most fresh
Good amount of pâté Vegetables Pickles
Generous serve of chilli I'm a crispy pork enthusiast, so a good crispy pork – also made that day.
Adrift in a Painted Sea
by C.M.Simmons
Take a seat, Dottie. You’re a rebel, Your eyes imbibed with Clamshell mischief. Your morning routine Of bathing in the sea Mortifies people Who stand on land.
Go whip that feeling, Smile wide and pull in.
Don’t let them see your Aphrodite growing.
Write lines in your eyelids And paint on your face
The smile of Mona Lisa.
A mind full like Aphrodite Leaves you being alone. You try to walk on shore But you can’t fight the tide.
From the shoals of your brain ocean torrents come To overflow our temple Of feigned contentment.
Go whip that feeling, Smile wide and pull in. Don’t let them see your Aphrodite growing.
Write lines in your eyelids And paint on your face
The smile of Mona Lisa.
Well, alrighty, little pearl. Your feelings are forfeit. Smile wide forevermore!
Stuck with us little pearl So keep that ocean away. Be Aphrodite no more!
Go whip that feeling, Smile wide and roll in. Don’t let them see your Aphrodite growing.
Write lines in your eyelids And paint on your face
The smile of Mona Lisa
Photography by Ibrahim Muan Abdulla
Catharsis
by Eric Xie
I feel as though I have awoken from a deep-seated dream. Dreaming of a Golden Courtyard, surrounded by smiling faces, the gleams of Sunlight penetrating my dankdamp room of stupor.
My dream hath eroded into the blue sailing clouds over the shimmering horizon. All I am left with are reddish imprints like a cacophony – voices… disappointed. Autumn hath turned to Spring but left me in Winter.
My world falling apart. The granite rocks crumble into the sea. A lonely seagull perches on the swaying post. Wafts of salty gusts… take me home.
Hopes –smiling faces look towards me.
Their gaze is piercing my muscles constrict and what is left is the husk of brittle corn wilting in the chill.
The warm, velvety nervousness is replaced by unfortunate bitter familiarity.
Those same conversations rising through…
I am lost within the confines of my expansive freedom. The Moon rises and the Sun falls. Things change.
Was it always better to have known and lost then to never know at all?
Wings –
I fly on wings gelded with eternal flight. Cold nights fall upon a horizon, evanescent in its grasp. I fly on blistering gales tear at my cornea, blinding the psyche. I fly on limbs tear, muscles pry for an escape. I persist.
In all probability
by Nimrada Silva
How absurd is it that we live in a world where daffodils exist?
I mean it’s ridiculous really that something so beautiful as a daisy
Could suddenly one day pop out from this cracked old ground And don’t even get me started on trees (how do they go on, for so long, so bravely)
Sometimes it knocks me out to live in a world where birds sing their warbled songs on slow Sunday mornings and that Sundays exist at all and for you to wake up next to me for some scraps of light to fall upon us in a world that is so often cold and bare to have your hand
Warm and solid on my stomach what an odd world what dumb luck
That we are here at all and to think of how often I worry
How often I toss this away carelessly dissecting it afraid of some impending sinkhole not knowing all light fades someday And yet to have even a few scraps of sun thrown at us so generously
For you to peel oranges and give me half for you to walk beside me in strange sounding towns where airplanes once crashed for you to hold my hand on long drives home and I closed my eyes and said nothing (because you knew, and I knew) what Zach Bryan knew singing about his rot-gut whiskey and his well-trained dog on a couple of acres it’s a shame we forget amidst risk calculations and future projections
We forget to take in this light to look up once in a while to thank this sky
We forget that in all probability this planet could have been cold and barren and lifeless trees could have died young flowers could have been beige or brown dogs might not have licked us when we cried, we might not have existed in this city at that time, and we might never have woken up that Sunday morning to make pancakes out of this thin, thin air
Self-destructing
by Pluto Cotter
Am I no longer me?
Have I changed so much since then?
You’re sure you don’t recognise me?
Are we two different men or the same man?
Do I not recognise myself?
What has happened to me Since I last saw her? What has changed in me since I was last her?
Is she still part of me?
Are we still the same?
Who are you?
Who are you?
I am not you?
Why do I not recognise myself?
Did you leave me behind?
Why would I ever want to be like you?
Did you ruin us ?
I didn’t want you to be like me. Your innocence stolen the same way as mine
I had to make choices that ruin us I destroyed us so they won’t recognise us. But do we recognise ourself?
Pulling out Pink
by Callum Weir
Content warning: mentions of blood and references to violence
Sometimes you’re the matador and I'm the bull and no one’s wearing red, Others you're the moon and I'm the sun and only one of us is up at night. My fingers through an electric fence, Or playing with fire or food or yourself. The rattle of a cheap red and paper cup Or fairy lights that sound like knives. Your mother will tell us not to worry about them And I’ll consider bubbles that pop on impossibles.
New eyes buzzing like a radio under rusted metal guttering. Perhaps that’s what I did last night, Reaching in and pulling out pink. Maybe I feel with fingers and not with heart. With touch and not with love.
I’d rather break my fingers than my heart When you slam the door on it.
I’ll pull myself apart before I pull your hair, And blood is browner than cherries, And the sun doesn't shine but burns, And spanking scares me, And love will never be enough. The sky isn’t pink anymore, It’s light red.
And then consider encore, consider red, consider bubbles. You’ll confuse being nice with good And I’ll believe loving somebody is enough to save them.
If only we were old and wrinkled and had only a few days left, I would not be so afraid
by Nimrada Silva
“A tiny shiver of foreboding passed through me then, a shiver of foreboding for myself and also the entire world. And I stood there holding on to this man as though he were the very last person left on this sweet sad place that we call Earth.”
- Lucy by the Sea (Elizabeth Strout)
If I am being honest completely honest sometimes some days, I do not feel properly human What I mean is I do not know if I can hold myself together let alone an actual person What I mean is I am afraid of hurting you of hurting myself If I go through my entire life without disturbing even an ant I would – what I mean is I love you what I mean is I never want to hurt you not even a single hair or neuron or cell and most of my life when people are ‘in love’ they have seemed insane people do such terrible terrible things to those they supposedly love and if this is love then frankly, I do not want any part of it
You know that old lady Lucy – fictional of course, I think a lot about things she said about her fictional friendship with her fictional ex-husband She said how, in all her life, she never felt at “home” with anyone as she did with him – even after they divorced; even after they re-married and lived with different partners – even then, she could never feel that sense of familiarity with anyone else, And I think about that – this feeling of home, and how strange humans are, making homes out of each other (you would say that homes should be built out of sturdier stuff – wood, or metal or some other element off the periodic table) And still, I can imagine – William and Lucy, two old people, with wrinkled bodies pressed up against a world that was sometimes unkind; coming together again, after years apart, – And I think maybe that is it if two people can hold each other like that amidst everything maybe it doesn’t have to be so scary
to the girl who was crying on the train
by Michelle Yu
to the girl who was crying on the train
I hope you got home okay and told someone about what was weighing you down. flowing out through your tears. do you have someone?
I hope you could say it. tell them
how much you needed help how lonely you felt how absurd you felt crying on the train
I hope you could say whatever anything after the hours of rolling songs around your tongue instead of what you had to say will you be ok?
I don't know if I'll get home ok today either
if there is anyone watching who can make it ok
“On Being Conservative” pt. 1
by Jocelyn Saunders
The left side of these poems are shortened from sections of Michael Oakeshott’s 1991 essay On Being Conservative. Though not publicly renowned, this essay, and a lot of Oakeshott’s work, led to the establishment of the change-resistant liberal conservatism we see in so much of our current politics.
“The common belief that it is commoner dreams so unpromising so unpromising i cried as to be not worthwhile when i wasnt the lost princess just attempting to elicit a migrant girl running explanatory principles and no one watching is it from conservative conduct your blood or my blood that is not one I share or these golden ghosts i clean these golden ghosts
It is not to be presumed i study their Reflections conservative conduct is less eligible even after my mothers ran is it for elucidation. Nevertheless, dusted cabinets teaching me this is not where i came from why am i so why the enterprise I propose is not a creed, did i choose this? not a doctrine, but because i feared a disposition. to run to crawl to scratch to claw to To be conservative is how long how long how long
to think, to behave, before my legs wash away am i weak to prefer wanting ghosts to love my golden pen even as certain kinds of conduct, they rape my great grandmother certain human circumstances and no one watches is it to others. so long ago? so so long you say To make certain of course we won’t make the same choices.” choices
- Michael Oakeshott
by Jocelyn Saunders
“On Being Conservative” pt. 2
by Jocelyn Saunders
ive gotten so good at them! “General characteristics of these stories that arent mine this disposition have often been mistaken. as a court artist They centre upon am i entertaining you have you yet satisfied a propensity to use, your charitability to enjoy who will i dedicate my next manuscript to? rather than to look, how? it doesnt matter its all
to delight in what is a lie i cant prove a present. commoner inheritance so unpromising
Gratefulness for what is high school friends only knew the tales and tales of a gift or an inheritance, lies that i sign not because it is recognized to be my name to but more admirable, its not mine but on account of familiarity: “stay with me, the name isnt mine so I am attached to you.” its okay, right? because
If the present i dont know my language offers little or this one wont do nothing to be used this one must do
If the present in the silence it echoes is unsettled im so tired of these sounds that arent mine
we will display ourselves, i dedicate these words that arent mine not for manifest improvements, but advance australia fair for easy assimilation. We will accommodate ourselves and you cast me to changes in your primary school play learning tool magical which multiculturalism were all friends: go on then! do not offend expectation.” finish the story! drown me and be done
- Michael Oakeshott by Jocelyn Saunders
Expectations Unveiled
by Nadine Michelle Reichardt
I walked the misty marshes, A small figure against the vast gray, Hands coarse from the forge, Heart heavy with unnamed desires.
A trembling encounter by the graves, An iron chain clanked in shadows— Fear wrapped in compassion For the stranger with haunted eyes.
Satis House loomed ahead, A monument frozen in time, Where clocks ceased their ticking And a bride lingered in decay.
She moved a distant star, Estella, cold and luminescent, Her gaze a sharpened blade Carving yearning into my soul.
Whispers of fortune found me, A promise of another life— Great expectations unfolding, A path paved with illusions.
London's spires pierced the sky, Streets murmured with deceit, Gold lined my pockets, Yet emptiness settled within.
Faces masked with pretense, Echoes of who I thought I'd be, Ambition blurred my vision, I was lost in gilded fog.
The shackled man returned, Bearer of unforeseen truths— The architect of my ascent, Shattering mirrors of misconception.
In the rubble of revelation, I saw the folly of my quest, The weight of borrowed dreams Crushing the simplicity of being.
I sought the warmth I'd forsaken, The anvil's steady song, The embrace of unspoken bonds, Roots deep in honest soil.
Shedding the veneer of grandeur, I stood bare before the dawn, Embracing the man emerging From the shadows of expectation.
One Christmas
by Charlotte Fraser
Content warning: coarse language, mentions of suicide, drug overdose, alcohol consumption.
It’s Christmas morning. I am thirty-seven now.
And my daughter is next to me. She is ten. She looks like her father, and it makes me love her more. That I can look into her little face and see the way her nose crinkles and her eyes sparkle when she smiles—just like him.
She looks at me like he does.
“Mum?” her voice is so small. She is so small.
“Yes?”
“Did Santa come?” she asks, and her eyes do that sparkle thing.
I smile like I’ve never smiled before. “Yes, baby.” And it’s a lie, but she is ten and doesn’t know that her mother can lie.
And my daughter’s father is there, and he looks at me with love in his eyes. And I smile at him. I smile so much now. I’m tired but it doesn’t matter because it’s Christmas and we only get one Christmas every year.
My daughter’s name is Elaine, and she looks for it written on the tags of the wrapped-up parcels under a terribly decorated tree.
She can read really well now.
Santa wrapped hers all in purple paper, so I don’t have to wear my glasses to read the names and know it’s hers. Santa has had a colour coded system since I got glasses for Christmas when I was thirty-three.
And Elaine’s father is my husband and the gold ring he wears is practically moulded into his hand now. He refuses to t ake it off.
He is holding my son’s hand, and my son is two. His twin, my husband’s other son, is already sitting by the tree
and Elaine is playing with him. She is such a good sister.
I’m a good sister now too. At thirty-seven.
Cassio’s presents are in yellow paper and Gilbert’s are in green. Santa has a really good system for mums who need glasses and can’t be bothered looking for them on Christmas morning. There is only one Christmas morning every year and I don’t want to waste a second of it.
It is Christmas morning. I am eighteen.
It’s Dad’s Christmas.
I come out of my room, begrudgingly. I hate Christmas. I drag my feet like my mum tells me not to, and I walk right to the kitchen to make a coffee.
I’m sitting down next to the perfectly decorated tree—each b auble well placed and the colours well balanced—and there are bags for each kid. The presents aren’t wrapped. There’s no paper. No sticky tape. No labels.
I’m not a kid anymore. Santa didn’t come for me. My dad jokes about me not being a kid—but I’ve only been eighteen f or a month. I still have training wheels on.
I see my kid brother texting our mum, making sure she sent Santa my Christmas list this year.
I have to drive later so I can’t open the bottle of wine my aunt gives me.
I wish I was drunk.
Instead, I watch my kid cousins playing with the little parcels Santa brought them, and I hate myself for growing up so fast.
My brother asks me to play with him and I go to my room instead. I’m a terrible sister.
I convince my dad to let me leave. I don’t say goodbye.
There’s just the jingle of my keys—an absence of bells— and the slamming of the door. I take my brother to my Mum’s house. We don’t speak in the car.
I’m eighteen and get two Christmases.
It’s Mum’s Christmas now and it’s not morning anymore.
The first thing I want when I walk through the door isn’t my mother, it’s a drink.
I’m eighteen and opening presents while I can hardly see straight. I spill red wine on my shirt.
I open the paper, looking for my name scrawled on the label in my mother’s distinct penmanship. She never writes my name. She writes some variation of it. Nick names she hasn’t used for me since I was eight.
I pretend I find it cute; endearing. I don’t.
I open the paper, and I’m not surprised by what I see. I sent her the links to buy these things; Showed her the right website, store, size, colour. My brother thinks it’s funny that Santa always gets me exactly what I asked for.
I bite my tongue and let him believe in Santa.
It’s Christmas and I’m twenty-three.
I have a girlfriend named Jean and she kills herself on Christmas Eve. I sit alone in my room all day looking at the note she wrote on the back of a ripped-up birthday card. My birthday card.
She wrote that she’s sorry and asks for forgiveness. Glitter from the card sticks to my fingers and won’t come off no matter how hard I scrub. It’s pink and tiny and everywhere.
I can’t help but hate her and hate Christmas. My mum calls me a lot and I text back asking to be left alone.
“But it’s Christmas,” she writes.
My throat is burning white-hot, and my eyes have run out of tears. I keep looking at the empty pill bottle and wondering if I drove her to it.
I’m not a necrophiliac, but I want nothing more than to kiss her one more time.
It’s Christmas and I write a letter to Santa even though I’m twenty-three and I know Santa isn’t real. I ask Santa to bring Jean back to me. To reverse time; to let me hold her again.
I ask Santa—or maybe God—to tell her that I love her even though she killed herself on Christmas Eve. I ask God and Santa to make sure she saves me a seat in heaven. Even though I know I’m destined for somewhere warmer. I scream “FUCK CHRISTMAS” at the top of my lungs and throw my phone out the window.
I don’t celebrate Christmas again until I turn twenty-six.
It’s Christmas morning. I’m twenty-six.
Our bags are still not fully unpacked from the honeymoon.
The tree is small and over-decorated. A bauble on each little branch. It’s barely standing up. We’ve hung stockings for one another, and he smiles at me like he’s proud; Proud that I finally agreed to celebrate Christmas again.
The tree is from Kmart, so it’ll only last a week or two. I don’t care. It’s our tree. It’ll gather dust in the corner of the lounge until we finally get sick of looking at it.
I sit with my husband on the floor, like children. We exchange little packets. We both know Santa isn’t real, but
we still kept the gifts a secret, so it feels like magic. It feels like magic again.
My husband gets me a book. He knows me well.
We didn’t bother putting up mistletoe in the doorways, we don’t need an excuse to kiss.
I love him, turns out that’s reason enough.
It’s Christmas Eve. I’m thirty-three.
I’m tucking my little girl into bed and her father is reading to us. It’s the third time this week I’ve heard the story of the rainbow fish, but it’s her favourite, which means it’s my favourite.
I look at her and I’m happy knowing that she’ll never know me by the sound of my footsteps. That she’ll never know her father by the way he closes the front door. I think of all the horrible, violent things I would do to anyone who ever even looked at her the wrong way. I wonder if I’m crazy or if I just love my child. I wonder if my parents even like me.
My husband finishes reading, and Elaine is sleeping already.
“She has your nose,” my husband says. I cock my head to the side and nod, looking closely and seeing parts of myself in that little sleeping face.
“It’s funny.” I smile. “I’ve always hated my nose. But how can I when it’s hers now too?”
He holds my hand and shakes his head. He doesn’t need to say anything. I already know. We make sure she’s asleep before we go out, both of us giggling like children, getting ready to set up the presents under the tree.
He laughs at me while I’m squinting at the labels trying to work out what name I scribbled on each gift.
“Here.” He hands me a small present, wrapped neatly. Carefully. “Early present.”
I open it and it’s my new glasses. I can’t help but feel old as I put them on, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t help. We place the presents in silence. It’s beginning to feel like Christmas.
I’m thirty-seven and it’s Christmas.
The house is covered in wrapping paper and paper hats from the crackers. The kids have taken their church clothes off and put their pyjamas on. I go to church on Christmas now. I’m thirty-seven and I take my kids to church on Christmas.
We’ve all eaten enough to last us until next year. My husband is packing the last of the food away into containers. I have a perfectly organised container cupboard. All of the containers have their lids. We haven’t lost any.
My daughter is on my lap, reading to me. She is ten now and she loves reading. She is a lot like me. She reads to her brothers as they play with yellow and green wrapping paper.
She is a great big sister. She looks up at me.
“Mum?”
“Yes?” I ask, running a hand over her hair, which curls like her father’s.
“I love Christmas.” And she smiles as she speaks, a big, ugly, toothy grin that makes my heart swell. “I wish we could have two Christmases.”
“No baby,” I say, chuckling. A happy sound, even though it makes me sad to think about it. I pray she never understands why. “That’s why it’s so good. There’s only one Christmas.”
“One Christmas,” she says. “Mum?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t wait for next Christmas.”
“Me either.” And it’s not a lie. “Me either.”
Aspen eyes
by E.U.Woods
They drop weak branches leaving watchful aspen eyes overlooking pools of sun and passers-by
swept along by a wide gust swathed through my window twinkling in rows arranged spiking into the air
an army of branches pole-like traversing darkness blind without their eyes left behind on the aspen.
Illustration by Lauren Luchs
Remembering my childhood_ Ice cream
by Michelle Yu
scrap money.
chug chug chooof choof pungent diesel bus traffic gap
I cross the kerb onto the road is steep. ice cream man on the street who you walked by everytime you went to the underpass in the CBD or was it the one at the void deck, ringing the bell? when he had some ice cream to sell?
But I know which flavour it was.
blocks of solid ice cream which one? kept cold deep in his cart. this one. Number 53. with the red-yellow parasol keeping cool shade over us as I studied the crinkled plastic menu, greyed on its laminated edges wafer or cone?
bread. Do you have the rainbow-coloured one? not all of them have the rainbow bread. this uncle does.
Ya. foil peeeled off ice cream chop chop chop peel wrap. $1.50. thanks Uncle.
the ice cream begins to run off, in the gully created by the bread you have to keep licking both sides. left. right. left always, all you get is the melted ice cream already too hot and sticky too busy putting out fires to ever bite into the ice-cold bliss of the beauty of life
In my memories, I give the $1.50 to my younger self Watch her rush home with the ice-cream uneaten so she could show her mum her favourite flavour vanilla and choc-chip ice-cream melted in the thin plastic cup in her hand
I watch her buy it as an after-school treat after a sweaty walk in the city Here, have the $1.50, child.
Take it.
Buy your favourite flavour that you fell in love with when you were young. Take it
Lick it before it melts and drips stickily all over your tanned hands tanned from walking home in the sun
I wonder if it tasted nicer, then ever as happy as I remembered or just as lost then there would be no cause to be sad, now.
it has always been this way neither better nor worse it has always been this way and things have not gotten worse.
When I Lived For The Second Time
by Tom Worsnop
When I died for the first time, It felt impressive. A digital shot through the chest, Ripping up my mental image, Giving way to a roaring wind, Knocking down the walls around, And revealing That nobody placed Sandbags on the French braces To stabilise them.
When I died for the second time, It felt important. Methodical and patient, Verbose and draining, It left me out to wilt In the blinding light, With nowhere to hide from A ritualistic killing, full of Ridicule and apologies. All to exorcise the past.
As the lights softened around me, And I stood up afterwards, Met by warm applause and Conditional forgiveness, I felt only The pressure of having to Actually make a change, And begin to live again.
My Heart Has Never Known How to Sense Danger
by Paul Luckhart
Content warning: mentions of death and grief
For Ira, Ada and Daniel Grief promises novelty. I wrote this in my journal while riding shotgun down the Hume Highway. The Alps to the south of me were a faint blue. Gordon Lightfoot sang quietly underneath the sound of the air conditioner. I thought about how I might use this in a story, or perhaps a poem, one day when stray lines find clear and sincere images to live inside. When Alex died I briefly lost control of my body in a supernatural sort of way. I cried with my brother over the phone before drifting or floating or crawling into the living room, where my then-housemates asked about my friend—the now-dead guy. “Did he have any pets?” they asked. This was a good question, I thought—still think—but I didn’t know the answer. Probably not. He did too much cocaine to be able to care for a dog. A fish, perhaps. “How did he do it?” That was the worst question, but I knew the answer nonetheless. “What was he like?” He was born in the backseat of a car in Hagersville, where burning tire pits sent noxious clouds rolling over motorcycle gangs and ice cream parlours. He loved Steinbeck and whiskey and people, and his charm came out of a darkness, like glow-worms or stars. One night, while he was high on acid, he drove from Madison to Minneapolis to see a girl, swearing that the roadside reflectors were the eyes of deer. He once promised me a house with him in Louisiana beneath Georgian pine, with gothic Spanish moss tickling our faces. He was two months short of the 27 club because he hated crowds. Had I been there for his wake, I would have called him an asshole and raised my glass, wearing a stupid grin on my face.
It was summer. I drank at watering holes like a wildebeest, watching the squirming shapes of reflections against my eyelids, against my body reclined on slabs of sandstone, dolerite. I was 22 and unhappy. I had been planning to read East of Eden before. Then I wasn’t so sure. Travelling south on the Alpine Way, I received a friendship bracelet from someone I didn’t know and set out to follow a ridge, blue scrub running on either side of me. I read that walking is a kind of seance. I liked that: the path made up and maintained by all those who knew it. Alone, I walked and talked out loud to the dead. I wanted to know something I hadn’t known before. It is awe that brings you from one beginning to the next, that takes you from one liminal space to another. Awe is a circle, insofar as it is continuous, but it is also not just a circle; it is also a square, a hexagon, a dodecahedron. It’s the reasons why rain falls, the etymology of words. It is momentum toward more living; a ship moving outward and outward still, until it arrives finally at the point from which it departed, only to find it changed, totally new. The wind on the ridge was cold, intense, and my greasy head was numb. I leaned into everything.
I visited him in Brooklyn one summer. We ate mushrooms and took the L train into Manhattan. Somewhere beneath the East River he said, “I’m feeling it.” I repeated: feeling it, and couldn’t look him in the eye for the next three hours. We were transmuted into gold and floated to the surface of the river. On land, we searched for water. Our thirst was biblical, and shops and bars confronted us with impediments like doors and people. Staring through the glass of a 7-Eleven, Alex said, “I don’t want anything to do with that.” He said this again at the Papaya Dog, and then again at the McDonald’s. I had been rendered mute and instead relied on Alex to speak me into existence. Whitman wrote about the world as a “simple, compact, well-join’d scheme.” Everything fitting together, everything disintegrating to plan. Words were in my head but I assumed they were in Alex’s just the same, that he could intuit my thoughts and that I needn’t explain them. A city tries to cheat death with street sweepers and ex machinas. Washington Square Park was filled with ghosts of international repute. I thought everything was a film set, that we had accidentally walked onto something or into something. “Why does everybody look like that?” I heard myself say on famous streets. “Why can’t I look like that?” It occurred to me—perhaps then but probably later— that there is a whole genre of writing by men who write about better, stronger men. Men who would provide for, or abandon, their wives in the name of nature. Men who could machete their way through a jungle full of vampires and could walk on water. It was Alex who finally sourced water for us from a hot dog vendor, appearing to us like a strange oasis. And it was a strange happiness, to be so helpless and cared for, even with the simplest gestures. He paid with bills in the shape of flowers, holding them up in his palm like floating lotuses.
In the unfinished manuscript Alex would later send me, he would write, “As a child, it was impossible not to love.” His heart, he knew, never sensed danger, and he was doomed because of this. He gestured to the humans around us, quoting his hero: “All great and precious things are lonely.”
In the Victorian Alps, I sat down and wept on lichen rocks, feeling the rough filaments of an almost alien life. I imagined him smoking a weed vape beneath the eucalypts. Stray lines were cast down to me again. Nonsensical lines, or even just words, out of context, passing through my head on their way to some future place where they might make sense. Grief promises novelty—it promises…a view. I laughed. Looking out, I stared into the valleys that carved through everything, separating heights and hollowing out the mouths to the face of God.
Illustration by Letian Tian
Hand wash only
by Eleanor Litras
It rained yesterday
I felt my skin go soft, puckering at the Seams as to the brim my brittle bones were filled
My insides swollen
You invited me inside
So inside-out I turned to squeeze myself dry
I was worried about dripping on your carpet
But I stood there oozing from my knees
From my elbows it kept coming
Water sloshing in my shoes
Seeping into the doormat
If only I had known you had a towel
Sublunary
by Jesse Allen
And if it were possible for us to build a ‘planet scraper’ and to construct settlements on Mars, the expeditions of scientists and engineers would be accompanied by a delegation of bartenders. – Joseph Roth
To call it the ‘dark side of the Moon’ is a misnomer. Its rotation locked with ours in an endless dance, there is only that side of the Moon we never get to see—ever the victims of our own fixed perspective. In this sense, how we look at the Moon reveals more about us than it ever could about our natural satellite. With their 2018 concept album, Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys joined a long line of artists who have seen the lunar surface as a place of escape: a safe haven from a culture saturated by sensationalism, which offers a unique vantage point from which to assess the troubled world below. Yet, together with one of their earlier spiritual predecessors—the second-century satirist, Lucien of Samosata—they show that such flights of celestial escapism might not offer all the answers.
Long before the Apollo landings, Lucien provided a first-hand account of his lunar travels in A True Story, the world’s first known work of science fiction. “I confidently pronounce that truthfully, I lie”—what better indictment of the specious travelogues dominating the ancient bestsellers list than challenging the reader’s complacent gullibility head-on? When the line between fact and fiction disintegrates, perhaps the only touchstone of truth lies in the absurd—in something so utterly outlandish, that it restores the outer boundary of reality. After a whirlwind launches his ship into the sky, we accompany Lucien on a fantastic voyage through the great expanse of space, replete with dragoons mounted on huge birds, giant celestial spiders, and flying frogs. And lest you question the narrator’s integrity: “if you think that I am lying, go there yourself, and you will see that I am telling the truth.”
The central conceit of Tranquillity Base is comparatively sober, if all the more unnerving for it's not-toodistant future plausibility. Eschewing both the impish anarchism of the band’s earlier studio releases, and the slick, pomaded grooves of 2013’s AM, its experimental sound and cryptic lyrics lend the record an other-worldly feel. And with good reason: its purpose, as stated on
the track Science Fiction, is to “highlight dangers and send out hidden messages” – though, naturally, “in a sexy way where it’s not obvious”. Elsewhere it touches upon rampant commercialism (I launch my fragrance called ‘Integrity’/ I sell the fact that I can’t be bought), personal estrangement (Do you celebrate your dark side/ then wish you’d never left the house?), and, in an uncanny echo of A True Story, unrestrained sensationalism (Breaking News: they take the truth and make it fluid). As with Lucien, Turner’s audience can quickly find themselves in the narrator’s firing line: “So when you gaze at Planet Earth from outer space / does it wipe that stupid look off of your face?” But it’s clear that the album’s protagonist—the resident lounge singer at the eponymous lunar resort—doesn’t think any more of himself than of his listeners: he is just as lost (Do you remember where it all went wrong?), and keenly aware that his soliloquies are more form than substance (I might look as if I’m deep in thought / but the truth is I’m probably not). It might be too cheap to say that if you gaze long enough at the Moon, the Moon gazes back. But while the ebb and flow of the tide shows how the Moon moves us, these two works demonstrate how we shape and mold it in return—when we check into the Hotel & Casino, we bring plenty of baggage. We may not encounter oversized extraterrestrial arachnids, but perhaps the no less fearsome creative stagnation, social isolation, and existential quandaries. 400,000 kilometres has never been enough to entirely escape our vices, much less our woes. All the more reason to keep the vacation brief. Four Out of Five advertises a place to “take it easy for a little while”, and sometimes this is precisely what we need—a circuit breaker, somewhere to take a breath and briefly trade a deluge of information for a Sea of Tranquility. It isn’t hard to see what drew both Lucien and Arctic Monkeys into its gravitational pull: the Moon is the ultimate tabula rasa, a canvas onto which we can project all manner of fears and fantasies. But while it gives us a fresh angle from which to see the limitations of our culture, the work of challenging these can only be done with our feet back on terra firma. You can check into Tranquility Base any time you like, but—sooner or later—you have to leave.
A Very Long Goodbye All At Once
by Alain Nguyen
When I started my Bachelor of Arts in 2016, I had a straightforward plan: complete my degree in three years, find a job, or go to law school. I shared this ambition with countless other students, all eager to jump into the next phase of our lives. Little did I know, those three years would stretch into four, and then somehow, five, and now? Let’s not count. What was supposed to be a swift passage into the adult world became a prolonged sojourn filled with unexpected detours and chaos.
After a brief and disorienting stint where I worked full-time, I found myself back in Melbourne. They say sequels are usually worse than the originals, but I’d argue my return was more like a strange spin-off nobody asked for. It was a return to familiar settings in a vastly different context, with a different cast of characters and plotlines.
You might wonder why I stayed so long and didn’t finish my degree on time.
Believe me, I’ve asked myself the same question more times than I care to admit. For an Asian Australian kid, not finishing on time—and doing a Bachelor of Arts and then something in Design, no less—is almost unheard of. Doctor, I am not. It’s easy to regret the years lost, the friendships that never had a chance to form, and the career paths that might have been. But eventually, you learn to accept that some ships have sailed. In my case, though, I found new ones to board.
In the years I spent at UniMelb, I saw and experienced things that would baffle anyone who wasn’t familiar with the strange microcosm that is university life. I played Mario Kart in a lecture theatre during exams, raced across campus with Nerf guns in a mock zombie apocalypse, and witnessed late-night scenes in the Baillieu Library that can only be described as “cursed.” Nothing at this uni surprises me anymore. I’ve seen the inspiring, bizarre, the ridiculous, and the outright absurd.
Yet, as much as I’ve enjoyed my extended stay, there comes a time when you have to move on. My moment of realisation came when a first-year student at O-Week exclaimed, “You were born in the 90s?”
At the risk of sounding like one of those overly sentimental LinkedIn posts about some grand journey of self-discovery, I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned. Consider them insights from someone who spent nearly a decade in this wonderfully frustrating world. Just don’t take as long as I did to figure it out.
I wish I had known while pursuing the degree that I had yet to overthink what to study. If someone asked me what major I would choose if I could start again, I’d probably steer clear of politics and go for something like geography or linguistics (barring syntax). Yet, don’t get me wrong, I did learn a lot in my politics major, but you always wonder if things would have been different.
But it was not the majors or grades that kept me going. You’ve probably heard it a million times—from university brochures, Reddit posts, love letters, and people around you—but the best part about university was the non-study things. Whether battling to book a badminton court or attending a coffee-tasting event, there’s something for everyone. If your résumé looks sparse, consider joining a committee, run a few events, or volunteering around campus. These experiences help you gradually build up skills that often matter more than your grades. I know this isn’t for everyone; sometimes, connecting with people can be tricky. University life is transient, often sweeping you up in its relentless motion. I overstretched myself, becoming inconsistent with my commitments and often couldn’t fully engage in the activities I had signed up for, losing many valuable connections and opportunities. But finding a space to explore that and managing this chaos is how you get through it. For me, it was Farrago. "What is Farrago? Who is Farrago? And where is Farrago?" The answer is that Farrago is whatever you want it to be. It’s a space where you can ignite your creative muses; for many, it’s a launching pad for their careers. So, how do you get a piece published? The best way is by pitching your work,and here’s a cheesy but true tip: keep building on the rejections you’re likely to receive. In my first year, every article I pitched to Farrago was rejected. I was also turned down when I applied to be a campus reporter a year later. But I didn’t give up. I tried again and got in during the second round of recruitment, even though I was jet-lagged and had just returned from an overseas trip. Persistence paid off, which you’ll find true in many creative pursuits. Here I am, signing off as a contributor with articles, photos, and even livestreams under my belt. It's been quite the ride from transforming the McMahon Ball Lecture Theatre in Old Arts into a makeshift newsroom to being locked up in Parliament House in Canberra for eight hours. This could be you: honestly, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Make yourself known to other budding writers and editors. Attend events—there’s usually some refreshment on offer, and you’ll probably walk away with a glossy copy of the latest edition. More importantly, you’ll meet some truly remarkable and inspiring people. These connections can be just as valuable as the work you produce, opening doors and providing support as you navigate your creative stories. An editor told me I went way over the word limit, so I will end it with this: my journey is about to end, and I still don’t know if it was a sequel or a spin-off. Only time will tell, but it's now your turn to create your own.
Photography by Alain Nguyen
Yakult
by Jayden Seah
I was shopping for groceries the other week at the local Cheaper Buy Miles, looking through aisles of food either on the brink of its expiry or some vegan “tastes just like meat” branding when I chanced upon bottles of Yakult. At least that’s what I thought, until, upon further inspection, I found it was some knock-off brand of yoghurt drink with the signature Yakult bottle stuck onto the plastic wrapping, as if the mere association with the bottle was enough marketing for the product. It came in all sorts of fun flavours like pineapple or blueberry and when I picked up the bottle to look for the expiry as one often does in a Cheaper Buy Miles, the sediments settling on the bottom made it clear why these bottles were sitting here on clearance for only a dollar per bottle. Why the hell not, I thought to myself, it’s only a dollar and so I ended up buying two.
To no one’s surprise, it ended up tasting nothing like the childhood drink I fondly remembered. It was often the drink of choice that was offered whenever I went over to my grandmother’s place, sweet enough to entice children but healthy enough to appease parents. She often had the best flavour, grape, stocked up when I visited and sometimes when I had followed her into the kitchen, she’d let me pick out what I wanted. She’d open the dingy fridge, the unappetising amber light cast on a mix of ingredients and leftovers. I’d look up like a child in a candy shop, staring at the rows of Yakult where eggs should be, pointing at the one I wanted. She’d grab it and place it in my hands, the cool plastic refreshing against warm, humid skin.
As time went by, the tradition continued; though at some point the tiny bottle grasped in my hand as I sipped away at the drink became far more comical than adorable. I’d walk into the kitchen to grab a Yakult, wondering when the fridge had grown smaller. I had barely noticed how I was already in the kitchen, looking back at her shuffling in, careful not to put pressure on her left ankle. Between all the visits and reunion dinners, when did she find the time to grow old? At some point, alcohol entered my rotation
of drinks, having mixed soju and yakult with friends at a Burger King on a school night. The yakult didn’t mask the bitter singe of adulthood, the taste of it a reminder of the child I no longer was. Of course I hadn’t thought about my grandmother in the moment, but later down the line, it did occur to me that I was somehow tainting this tradition I had with her.
I fondly recall the last time I was at her place, milk powder and vitamins stacked on the cupboard and in the drawers. There was now a rocking chair where a stool once was and my grandmother sat by the dining table, speaking to my mother about groceries or traffic in a dialect I could barely understand. She moved to get up, asking if I wanted anything to drink and I had declined. She looked so comfortable in the chair, how could I ask her to get up? If I had known then that I’d never get the chance to again, I would have asked for a Yakult. She passed away some time earlier this year whilst I was in Melbourne. I think my parents saw it coming, because the funeral happened quickly and nothing was said of it after, only simply that when I returned, I should visit her at the crematorium. I don’t think I cried then, not having registered that she was gone. It was a feeling of pseudo-grief, which was then replaced by guilt for not being visibly shaken by her passing. Some days I wish I had bothered to learn her language so that I could have something more to cling to than broken Mandarin conversations about Yakult or how tall I had gotten. On other days, in the haze of denial and naivety, I forget she’s passed, believing that she’s still in her apartment with Yakult in the dingy fridge, waiting for me to visit. In those moments, I find myself longing for a bottle of Yakult, knowing that it would never quite taste the same. On a day in the far distant future, when time has eroded away memories of playgrounds and scraped knees, I hope that when I pass the Yakult at the supermarket, that I’d see all the memories of you I had stored away in that tiny bottle.
When We Were Young and the Capitalisation of Nostalgia
by Madeline Barrett
Between 1995 and 2018, the summer spot for North American rock fans was Warped Tour, a travelling music festival featuring the biggest names in rock, pop-punk, emo, and scene. In its prime, bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Paramore were playing on rickety stages assembled off the backs of trucks to crowds of dehydrated teenagers high off of seeing their emo idols for the first time. Despite hosting all manner of rock subgenres through the years, the festival played a major role in making emo music accessible to (American) fans, cementing itself as a key player in the subculture during the years of emo’s mainstream relevance.
Warped toured its final summer in 2018. Long past its glory days of the 2000s emo boom and formative 90s years of punk and ska, it bade audiences farewell with a smattering of 2019 anniversary shows, celebrating 25 years of the festival before closing its doors (though not for good, if next year’s 30th anniversary shows are anything to go by).
While emo will never truly die, it’s unlikely to ever reach the same soaring heights it did in 2006. The genre's disappearance from the mainstream has led to a trend of those who participated in the emo subculture revelling in the nostalgia of their teenage years. While there is certainly no shortage of younger and newer fans romanticising a time where a group of ratty emo kids would fit right in at the mall, self-identified “elder emos” are the number one targets for the shinier, repackaged, current day Warped Tour, When We Were Young.
When We Were Young is an annual music festival dedicated to all things 2000s emo. After a 2017 trial run, the festival truly established itself in 2022, touting packed lineups and consistently selling out tickets ever since. Now, the biggest names in emo, albeit older and with larger discographies under their belts, can be found for one weekend each October in Vegas.
2024’s lineup boasted a My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy co-headliner, alongside heavy hitters like Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, and Coheed and Cambria, among dozens of other hugely influential bands. This year, most bands’ sets consisted of a full playthrough of their most popular album. The overwhelming majority played something released between the years of 2002 and 2008. This perfectly illustrates the issue. When We Were Young has never tried to promote itself as any
thing other than a nostalgia-fest. It’s a core part of the festival’s aesthetics, attitudes, and name, with scene-style graphics and constant reposting of throwback TikToks depicting emo as a long-gone teenage love that can conveniently be indulged in at this festival. While it cannot be denied that emo was a stronger cultural force twenty years ago than it is today, embracing the festival’s enthused “remember this?” attitude isn’t helping anybody. There’s nothing wrong with reminiscing on good times. But the nostalgia angle becomes more questionable when someone stands to profit from it. This year, When We Were Young’s lowest tier ticket came to an eye-watering $440 USD (or $650 AUD) for a single day, and VIP packages inched their way up into the thousands. For context, Warped Tour tickets sat comfortably in the $20 to $40 range, one of the crucial factors in making the tour accessible for its primary audience of teenage fans. Putting ticket prices aside, a more serious repercussion of nostalgia arises. When We Were Young bases itself on the memory of emo’s 2000s peak, resulting in the festival reflecting and reproducing the trends of the era. When 2024’s lineup dropped, it was only a matter of time until fans noticed that of a lineup of over fifty bands, only four had a woman in them. It’s an unfortunate truth that emo music was and still is male dominated, but four women was a gross misrepresentation of the scene’s gender divide. Following backlash, seven more bands were swiftly added to the lineup, all of them female-fronted. At the ease at which seven female-fronted bands were procured, fans couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t been included in the original lineup. Nostalgia clouds judgement, with rose-tinted glasses hand-waving away the stark and often uncomfortable reality of what we reminisce over. In its heyday, emo music was overwhelmingly musically exclusive of women and people of colour, rife with sexist lyricism, and had a garnered reputation of musicians preying on and taking advantage of young fans. They’re unpleasant truths, but they should not be ignored in the pursuit of replicating a romanticised version of a long-gone youth. This culture cannot simply stay nostalgia-stagnant: it must evolve. The ugly bits should not be ignored. When you’re presented with the things you love, ask yourself why they’re being presented to you through the filter of nostalgia.
Dear Thomas Pynchon,
by Fergus Sinnott
Thomas Pynchon is an American author. His works, known for their density and complexity, include, among others, V. The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, and Inherent Vice.
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” – Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Dear Thomas Pynchon,
There is a man standing out in front of my house. He is turned away from me, smoking a cigarette and talking into his mobile phone. I can see him from the window of my bedroom on the second floor, the only one of the house’s three which is westward facing, looking out over the street instead of the backyard. I am three pages in to the second chapter of your most recent novel, Bleeding Edge, but the presence of this man, whom I do not know, and whose affairs do not concern me, but whose presence out in front of my house is no less disconcerting, continues to draw my attention away from the beginning of the main character’s New York odyssey.
I will admit, first of all, I have not read your seminal work, Gravity’s Rainbow. Believe me, this is not for lack of trying: my only resolution at the beginning of 2024 was to read five pages of the novel every day. By this metric, I should’ve been able to finish the novel in one hundred and fifty-two days. But I didn’t even make it twenty pages in.
In my defence, it is a perilously difficult book to read. On the one hand, it features over 400 characters. On the other hand, it is arguably the apotheosis of postmodern literature. I know that, once I finish it one day, it will unequivocally become my favourite novel of all time, a fact after whose utterance my brain will proceed to fold in on itself.
I read an article in a psychology journal recently, which found that people obsessed with celebrities and celebrity culture exhibited lower levels of intelligence than those who showed no interest in them. As a lifelong devotee to celebrity culture, this was disconcerting to learn. My life consists primarily of attempting to contact Leigh Whannell and explain to him the impact he and his Saw franchise had on me as a teenager. Four of the five tattoos I have currently are references in one way or another to books, films or movies I have a deep personal connection to. I’ll have you know that one of them just so happens to be the W.A.S.T.E symbol from your 1966 novel The Crying of Lot 49, a symbol whose true signification is deliberately elusive.
Are you familiar with the Streisand Effect, Mr. Pynchon? It relates to an incident that occurred in 2003, when Barbra Streisand’s attorney attempted to legally prohibit photographs being taken of her clifftop property in Malibu. This was in response to a single photograph which had been taken of the property, revealing its exact location. The very fact of this attempted prohibition meant that droves of people flocked to her residence in order to capture their own photographs. Thus, the Streisand Effect refers to the paradoxical public interest in an event or figure due to a greater attempt to curtail this interest in the first place.
I understand that you are an incredibly private person. There are very few photographs of you available online, the most chronologically recent of which predates the millennium. I extend my greatest admiration to you in this regard. I, for one, find it difficult nowadays not to be deeply paranoid by the extent to which I am accessible online, to which my digital footprint cannot be washed away. I wonder whether it would even be truly possible for someone to fall off the face of the earth entirely—our credit cards are traceable; our search history lives on in a data centre; someone, eventually, will always come knocking. This ought to be comfort, a blight against the notion that no-one would miss us once we are gone, but it isn’t, at least not to me. And we think about what we leave behind, what our legacy will be, wouldn’t it be more worthwhile to have that largely consist of however many published works on shelves around the world, rather than a catalogue of stories about our own private lives, available online for all the world to see?
I wonder what you think, how you think, what you do with yourself when you are alone. I wonder, but I do not wish to know. Perhaps the phrase ‘don’t meet your heroes’ is less a warning than it is a mere insinuation that both you and your hero have more important things to do, and it would perhaps be best if you both just left each other to it.
The man is still standing out in front of my house. His back is still turned, but even if he were to turn around and look up, I doubt he would be searching for me either.
With much adoration, F.
Illustration by Adam Dinh-Vu
THE ART OF PARTIES: SILK AND ROMCOMS
by Aditi Acharla
It is winter again in Melbourne, conjuring up frost-covered windows without the twinkle of snow. Vast, freezing home interiors with an equally harsh wind blowing outside; downpours of rain shrouding our city. Once more, a gloom settles that will last most of the year. Warm sunlight trickles through my window as I listen to the sounds of a gardener mowing our lawn outside, grateful for the spring-like weather even if it is only momentarily. Yet, I stress over winter outfits or lack thereof. Winter rolls around and so does our annual dinner party. Winter rolls around and so we freak out accordingly as the date inches nearer and the calendar darts past in the blink of an eye.
This year the costume (and to an extent, food) theme is romcoms. Romantic comedies, romances, coming-of-ages decadent with love, anything to do with love, love, love. One out of the six of us already has their costume: Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Starkly different from Truman Capote’s Holly, but the most beloved version nonetheless. A young girl behind a facade of extravagant parties, cabaret, tiaras and Tiffany jewellery bobbing up and down a martini of carelessness, and perhaps loneliness. I first watched this movie as a toddler and then again—with better clarity—at thirteen. Holly always posed as a heroine to me, not for her false exterior but as an inspiration for compassion, teaching me at a young age the complexities of any relationship, and how a large part of it ultimately rests on you. Unfortunately, I cross her off my list and wave goodbye to one of my favourite characters. The rest of us have no clue who we’re going to be. Hundreds of movies compete amongst each other with zero viable options. I rifle through every single film I’ve seen in my head, like a filing cabinet brimming with genres unrequired: slasher horror, actions doubled down with car chases, a lacklustre coming-of-age that plays like a music video (unnamed, due to a maybe controversial opinion). With the romcoms I do love, I save photos where the female protagonist’s outfits look wonderful and somewhat attainable. For instance, Meg Ryan’s outfit in When Harry Met Sally—an all time favourite of mine—where she and Harry (played by Billy Crystal) are both decked out in cosy sweaters, his a white fisherman jumper and Sally in a ruby red cable knit. Her costuming embodies warmth, a comfort that reminds me of hiding out in my house during winter, and slipping out to see loved ones. We trade jumpers and tote bags and blazers and socks and sometimes we match in our clothing, a thin thread connecting us together even when we’re apart. We are always stuck in some form. I’ll still manage to stash one of their beanies in my room. Another option that comes to mind immediately is Sabrina Fairchild from the 1954 Sabrina, also played by Audrey Hepburn. Her Givenchy dresses may be difficult
to source, but thrifting is our favourite pastime. Now, as we’re growing up I’ve come to realise the importance of invitations. I no longer see my friends everyday. When we’re unsure, the best thing to do is invite each other everywhere. Will you come to our gig? Meet me at my optometrist. Can I go in your car? Like in the movie, we’re transforming into something more mature, shedding pieces of our old selves for the better, but the company is still there. My favourite outfit of Sabrina’s is when she’s come back from Paris, away from her own spunky, childish past. It’s the iconic shoulderless evening gown, embroidered with black florals and in accordance with those accents, diamond flower earrings ending with pearl drops. I watch in awe as the scene comes on, a little bit different every time. Following close is her sailing attire: plaid button-up, white shorts, wedge sandals and thick hoop earrings. It’s charming and retro and hopefully easy to pull off, Audrey’s simple outfit with Linus’ (Humphrey Bogart’s) suit that’s representative of where they started in life, now united in love.
The previous year, the theme was based on a novel I was working on, characters based off my friends down to their occupations and who they dressed up as. One of my friends, a new addition to these parties came as her counterpart, a PI: paperboy cap, coat, black turtleneck and shorts. On the other hand, I was dressed in all black—a black maxi ribbed pencil skirt, a short black off-shoulder top, black hair to my neck, a necklace of black pearls and to make sure I wasn’t that morbid, long silver earrings like a stream of water. It was fitting for the dark yet entertaining character I wrote on myself, my flaws magnified in her. I’ve taken inspiration from everything in my life for that story. Sometimes life oddly imitates parts of it. Or maybe I’m attempting to apply it to reality, learning from a central message that I am simultaneously writing; love, triumph and failure. When it comes to applying it for this dinner I am at a loss. I flick through romantic movies. My friends disagree that The Devil Wears Prada counts despite the exemplary outfits. 13 Going on 30 might be a bit too eclectic for me, as I think of the image of Jenna Rink (played by Jennifer Garner) and her pencil buns, buns with literal pencils supporting them. My friend asks me, “what about Notting Hill?” I haven’t seen it. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? The Holiday? (by the end, I had watched all three). My mind turns with worry and I come to the conclusion that I simply haven’t seen enough romcoms to choose my outfits wisely and time is running out. It appears the only solution is to catch up. I invite a friend over and tell her we need to hit as many as possible tonight and tomorrow. We start off with Bridget Jones’ Diary. Renee Zellweger as Bridget is clumsily endearing yet none of the costumes strike us
as wearable for a dinner party, her character often opting for comfort. What I really should have worn was the Playboy bunny outfit, of course. Another Zellweger movie which we both haven’t seen immediately becomes a favourite: Down With Love. We are drawn to the costuming, designed by Daniel Orlandi, which is strikingly 60s, the sort you see in an edition of Vogue. It is corporately colourful. The heroine, Barbara Novak, has matching clothing articles with accessories, harmonising colour and contrast down to a tee in an array of plaid, silk and feathers. However, being that we are only given two weeks, we admit defeat amongst the black, yellow and white houndstooth outfits, saddened by the fact that we will perhaps never wear Barbara’s iconic pink striped sheath dress and matching playful blazer. A staple of the romance movie genre is Four Weddings and a Funeral which I watch for the first time while eating ice cream on my friend’s couch after we swapped houses. I’ve had too many conversations with her about our futures but something shifts during the movie. Life suddenly isn’t a game or a book that’s yet to be released. While it’s so many years away, I realise—like Hugh Grant’s character Charles and his entourage of friends— that we’ll eventually move out of this stage of our lives. We might end up in different states or countries, we might get married, or be so married to our job that we hardly have time for anything else. We will grieve. Miss each other. But when winter passes through, the cold eventually melts away for one day. I will write about the annual dinner party with my friends and how it is at least one moment in the year where all of us come back together, all in varying stages of our young lives and laugh about how much more different we could be, still feeling the same as we did in high school. In romance movies, while love is (evidently) the forefront of the story, the fashion within is deeply important in progressing the action of the film and telling us, as the entranced audience, that the characters are falling into the deep end of love. The costuming serves to showcase the characters’ temperament and passion. Those silk yellow dresses and blue chiffon florets attached onto a gown tell us the inner story against the external movements of a romance. We are not told, but shown, that they are being completed by each other. I remember a line from one of my favourite romances, Brief Encounter: “I have fallen in love…I didn’t think such violent things could happen to such ordinary people.” I haven’t seen the movie in a while, but as I browse the racks of Salvos and Brothers of Saint Lawrence, it rings in my head as a declaration to the discarded cardigans. The movie draws out our desires on screen and we replicate through fashion. Every thread is a momentum of our lives. It’s emblematic of what we
sylvia plath wearing Saint Laurent.
by David Surace
SHE WEARS FAUX PAS FUR TO HIDE HER SOUL SUNK SAD EYES
SITTING ON A SMILE
her energ y evades her evangelists with a se xual prowess less often direct her r aw uncut diamonds reflect; a self -ish and everlong prospect
a wandering soul without any trace ever yone walks so fast past her on the footpath you'd think time was r unning away or something each instance her EXISTENCE is PERSISTENCE
"how INSISTENT is EXISTENCE" yet PERSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT.
fr agments of a face in the mir ror each mor ning r ub red eyes r aw while she's still yawning it ends on Wednesday [without any war ning] how to stop the thoughts from spawning no haghahahahahshsahahahaaha i dont r uminate i don't r uminate i don't think about it no no no hey siri how to stop br ain ––i fOunD thiS on thE wEb glugluglgulgulgug
where ismy mind–my lobot has been omised being = be-ing ≠ being, it's more just: "im having", and im not even having im just pretending to have so people maybe see me as… 100111001––[inzerr t blank]
nomnom nom , i consume to become
SPLIT INTO THREE-HUNDRED-AN D-SIXTY-FIVE DAYS
oomph-oopmh-oomPH-OOMPH OOMPHH + drink to quench the thirst for past destinations
a bona fide pro at letting you know nada her spirit[ed/less] youth tr apped in louboutin shoes
she talks to apollo but cr aves dion the bottomless br unches and refundable tickets the dance of pills and breath of the mosh
the thought experiment of:
"could i love again?" then hide it behind a tonic and gin.
a burp, a stumble – she says:
xxxtra illicit [pills] take me away
[!tRIPADVISOR© CERTIFIED ]
and then i can be better no br ain for me no no no ooga bogoa what i need please murder my mind slowly please fabricate a life something interesting PLEASE
i drink because I LOVE [$16.50] beer its so good and doesn't taste like wet bread kill my brain nice and bubly pls gaze into the abyss – itz all in front of me inhale fumes, eyes swirling i swear i can see myself in ur eyes, r u r unning from me too!?
WAIT>! r those ?!
∫ blacked-out PRADA© mirror-esque sunglasses; A STYLISH COVER FOR TEARS ? you look like a fucking IDIOT!
yea you wait, me idiot
stupid prick eughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh SHUT UP!
IF I SAY IM OKAY– IM DEFINTELY OKAY and NOT ESCAPING THE IMPENDING ENDING OF A [LIFE/LOVE/DREAM] or HIDING BEHIND COUNTLESS INAUDIBLE SCREAMS FOR [help! I'm alone!]
OUR EYES COLLECTIVELY CONNECTED THROUGH LIKES AND LOOKSMAXS AND LOCK-INS
WHERE YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE REFLECTION OF MY IRIS, BUT LOOK AWAY WHEN THE CONTACT BECOMES A RISK
whywhywhy? are you watching me?
1 cure [a]void?
2. forget yourself ?
3 a source of infinite jest?! my fac[e]ade melted onto my soul, the plastic dripdripdripdrip to the floor revealing my eyes see ping tr uths of empty SAY CHEESE [clunjk. flash]
A stumble, a burp; I’m sor r y im sr y, the camera jiust bleinded me i swear i c myself n ur eye zz u look lonely comeher and kiss me like it s the last time i want2 remmber ur lips and tha shape of your face in my hands andthe smell of your skin why are your pupils dilating? this is just the first time
timetimetimetime =
time can t run away from itself anymore
Put it in the books
Eng rain this in histor y Leave it behind Leave me bhind becoz reality is hard and it is lonely so better to invest in people that don’t know me
I want to come home
I want to come home
Goodbye William
by Claire Le Blond (MUSC)
So long and farewell… Dear Shakespeare,
Or as the Australians say: "see ya later mate."
It's time for William to go back home. I've kept him in Melbourne long enough. Parting is such sweet sorrow but I have little reason to be sad. After all, in the words of Lindsay in Total Drama Island fame, bimbo of the century: "bye is just hi, but with a b."
William can't compete with such linguistic genius.
What's left for William in Melbourne? Quite a bit actually.
I never took much notice of William. He was more than a spectre, yet less than a ghost. Perhaps a presence. He's in my life far beyond my position as the beleaguered Artistic Director of the Melbourne University Shakespeare Company (amongst other laborious jobs). I owe it to him. After all, the man won't have an opportunity like this in his or mine century. So, I take him to as many locales as possible.
Let's take him on the City Circle Tram. It's a jolly circle around the grid—what odd geometry—but by now William is far better acquainted with the modern world's substitute for horses. Every time we look up at the buildings—taller and taller every time—he grumbles, making his own impassioned cavil as he cranes his neck back. Buildings taller than castles confuse him still. I ask if he'll write an ode to them. He answers not, but the electricity in his fingers is far more than static.
In the efforts of getting the Bard to pick up his quill, I take him to the State Library of Victoria. Shelves upon shelves tower above us, the looming scent of aged mahogany and drywall infused in every page. Will is thoroughly confused by the concept of a digital library catalogue. We venture into the Graffiti lanes. Beyond taking tourist-style photographs together, Will imposes his Elizabethan sensitivities on the art style. Then the Royal Botanic Gardens. Will gets hayfever. I bully him for it. I attempt to take him window shopping at the arcades but alas, William was thoroughly confused by the concept.
“I may purchase this mounted glass?” “No.”
“Pray tell, how can this be ‘window shopping’ if the window remains out of my purse’s reach?”
“It’s clearly a figure of speech; you should be better at this, Will, you invented half of the modern English lexicon.”
“That is an exaggeration.”
“My point still stands!”
To finish off William's last moments in Melbourne, I took him to a show. Complimentary ticket. It was a show I had worked on, albeit in a minor role. We wait at the door. The crowd grows with every passing stanza, the natural beats of the Melbourne night life (or at least its Parkville equivalent) thump thump thumping. Body upon body piles into the 400-seat theatre, whose stage has been draped in delicate white fabric for a more intimate setting. The show begins. 70s-inspired boogie hard-rock fusions blare from the speakers. A disco ball descends. There are moments of exquisite fight choreography, tender moments of first love beneath the lightened shadows, the stage electric with glee. A friar recovers from a hangover. Enemies tease at becoming lovers. Jesu Marìa. A feather boa runs amok downstage. The morning lark heralds further tragedy, and all we can do is watch.
As the show ends, William turns to me. The tears in his eyes are unbecoming of a gentleman. I do not begrudge him for it. I myself can barely speak. He asks the name of the piece that took the two hours traffic of the stage before us.
It's your show, Will, I say. This is your story.
I'm not privy to the thoughts of the real William Shakespeare; however, I do wholeheartedly believe, if he had been sitting with me in the Union Theatre on the opening night of Barkly Theatre's Romeo + Juliet, he would be overwhelmed with awe—as was I.
Goodbye William. Go home to England. Write your plays. Sing your songs. Profess your poetry. Remember not your days in Melbourne. Remember only, the joy of a sunburnt country, and the revelry of the gentlemen’s taverns. Goodbye, dearest William. Goodbye.
Illustration by Amber Liang
The “Chasing That Feeling” Diaries
The River of Stones
by Lani Jaye
Content warning: references to death
Jun Choi felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him as he hopped onto Tram 6 on Swanston Street. This was the tram he had accidentally taken when trying to make his way to Flinders Street station in his first year. It was also the same tram that had unintentionally brought him to his favourite place in Melbourne: the Melbourne Cemetery. In the two years since, the dark-haired boy had never revealed this piece of information to his family nor friends, besides Hawon and Taerin. As peculiar as it was, the Cemetery had been the place Jun would go to take his mind off of things, to breathe, since his incidental first encounter with the place. Jun couldn’t think of any better way to spend the evening other than paying the cemetery a visit. Today was the first day of summer but, upon arrival, he sensed a familiar chill in the atmosphere. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he let out a shivery breath. There were several different paths he could take to begin his walk. It would have been easy to get overwhelmed, but this was his place to lose control and allow his feet to lead the way. He took the broad path in front of him, welcoming him with an arch full of roses. He walked, walked and walked some more, inhaling the cool air. Not a single thought entered Jun’s head for a while—besides noting the names of the dead surrounding him—and the quiet was refreshing.
But of course, a thoughtless moment was never eternal.
The sun began to descend toward the west, and Jun’s thoughts wandered to his grades. They were finalised just today.
Good grades all H1s, he recalled typing on his Notion a year ago, drowning in a strong blend of frustration and determination. He did not H1 his way through the grades, but they were high enough to satisfy Jun. He was so close, maybe if he pushed himself just a little bit more next year…
No, he stopped himself. He still had good grades, he had not given in to his parents, and he had stayed back in Melbourne this summer: somehow, he had mostly managed to meet his goals. He had made ‘24 his. I should be proud of myself, he thought, right? But there was one more year waiting for him. As he continued to walk through the cemetery,
past tombstones he had walked by many times before, he felt like a flowing river. He was flowing into an ocean, a vast, brilliant ocean he had never seen before, a place void of certainty. He felt the weight of the load he had carried with him throughout the year. He was exhausted. It was the first of December, and soon it would be January. Jun had another year to plan for. He stopped in his tracks, a river split by solid rock, fear, doubt and hesitation oozing between the white foam. He thought he was going to collapse, another body atop a ground full of dead—but he managed to collect himself with his last remnants of strength. He let out a shaky breath and watched the vapour cloud in front of him. He was probably in the coldest place in the cemetery right now. He ran his fingers through his dark hair. Ebby had cut it last month, and now it draped down just enough to reach his neck. The pink was gone, like it was never there. Jun wanted to give his hair a break from the bleach damage. He needed a break from the damage he had done to himself. No. He needed to push through. One more year, Jun.
But then what? What are you going to do after you graduate?
Jun sighed, tired of the weight of the stones that people kept skipping across his river. They always sank to the bottom. People seemed to forget that part. He tilted his head up, dark eyes wandering over the sky above. They met with the moon, who was patiently waiting for the sun to set. She was a full and brilliant celestial being tonight, luminescent even in the bright blue sky. This made Jun smile, feeling something between longing and hope. His thoughts went back to the crescent moon he had seen outside his window a year ago, back in Daegu. That same moon had gone through twelve cycles over the year, back and forth between shining bright and full and hiding in the dark. He understood her, he thought. Like the moon, throughout the year he had waxed and waned. And he knew he would continue to do so. Jun finally stood back up again, knees wobbly. He was afraid and tired. But as he watched the moon, her serene presence cast a wave of comfort over him. She was there to walk him through the darkening sky. Following the moonrise, Jun walked his way out of the cemetery.
Illustration by Amber Liang
One Unimelb Year
Semester 1 – SWOTVAC
by bluehour
Content warnings: references to sexual themes and sexual abuse
Two years ago, as I was moving onto Master’s, I’d always get into fights with my (now former) flatmate over something or another. It just kept getting worse until eventually I had enough and just moved out.
“I mean, living in a university college is great since it’s close to campus and includes a lot of things, but it’s expensive right?” Becky says as she waves her spoon around.
“Yea I’m not even considering it.” Damien sighs.
“But like, you could get those scholarships to help you pay for it.” I quip, and Damien starts, looking at the website on his phone, rotating it and zooming in so he can see it better.
Becky goes to pay for us and we figure out the bank transfer logistics of the shares of what we owe her as we start heading home. On the tram, we talk about their plans for the day that I’m gonna be leaving and not long after, the two get off at Melbourne Central, and I look at them walk into the station as the tram continues on.
A glance up from my phone tells me I’ve reached the last stop, and I look both ways to see if there’s anything strange before I get off. It would’ve been easier to take the tram running along the other side of uni but then I wouldn’t have been able to spend those last few minutes talking to them before they got off.
I usually go down Tin alley at night, but today just feel like walking through Monash road since I used to do it often. Or perhaps it’s out of habit since I usually go down here to get a coffee every second morning
I look around at the buildings on my right, recalling that when I started uni, they were still under construction. But after they just opened, I remember that I used to love coming here.
I walk past the building with the food court and look at the seating outside in front of the glass, remembering that I used to always study and hang out here with a friend. A former friend perhaps.
It’s not like I’m still as bitter about what happened before, but I guess Becky still remembers it. I did tell her not to talk about it in front of anyone else so when her tongue slipped earlier, she really had to tiptoe around it.
But I guess that after all this time, all I feel now is some regret.
I don’t think that Lucy made the wrong choice to study an Honours instead, especially when she had
the marks to take that opportunity. She’s always been wanting to go into academia and I was kind of immature at that time, really betting on that expectation that she would follow me to study Master’s, ‘cause it’d be nice to have a friend to study with, just like back in undergrad. I pace past the buildings and through the square, with my ears tingling from the sound of my footsteps and the leaves crunching underneath them. Lucy and I took the same Crime, Criminology, and Critique subject back in first year, when we were fresh out of high school. We kind of only started hanging out because we didn’t have any other friends from high school in the same uni, but over time I realised how cool she was. She didn’t speak much at first: she was pretty cold and standoffish when I was trying to talk to her. But after I got to know her, she was a yapper with a soft-spoken voice. It was fun because we we had a lot in common. We both liked bouldering and after we went for the first time together, we became regulars and would go together on the weekends. We both played basketball and tried out for the uni team, playing a few dozen games together over the two and half years that she was still on the team. She quit ever since she started her honours, and I know she’s studying her PhD but I don’t know if it’s still here or if she went somewhere else for it. I still have her blocked on Instagram, but occasionally but ocassionally when I’m feeling nostalgic’), I’d check her profile. I take out my phone as I walk past the gym and into the front gate building of the college.
On the way back to my room, I look at her new posts where she’s with her friends at dinners or parties, and where she sends them birthday wishes’). She seems to have gotten more time to do other stuff (have fun?) ever since she finished that Honours year, I remember her completely disappearing during her studies.
But even so, I had a few other friends doing their honours, albeit in other fields, and they didn’t need to cut off all contact from humanity. Maybe doing an Honours in criminology is tough, I don’t think I would’ve been able to manage it myself.
I grab my basketball uniform from the closet and shove it into my backpack. I have team practice early morning tomorrow, I don’t know how I’m gonna handle that.
Illustration by Georgia Bartholomeusz
One Unimelb Year
Semester 1 – End of Exam Period
by bluehour
Content warnings: Death of family member
I did have a bad experience with that former flatmate. Two years back, it was when I was moving onto Master’s and during that time, I’d always get into fights with her for some reason or the other, sometimes over the smallest of things. It just kept getting worse and eventually I had enough and just moved out.
“I mean, living in a university college is great since it’s close to campus and includes a lot of things, but it’s expensive right?” Becky says as she waves her spoon around.
“Yea I’m not even considering it.” Damien sighs.
“But like, you could get those scholarships to help you pay for it.” I quip, and Damien starts looking at the website on his phone, rotating it and zooming in so he can see it better.
Becky goes to pay for us and we figure out the bank transfer logistics of the shares of what we owe her as we start heading home. On the tram, we talk about their plans for the day that I’m gonna be leaving and not long after, the two get off at the Melbourne Central stop, and I look at them walk into the alleyway going into the station as the tram continues on.
A glance up from my phone tells me I’ve reached the last stop, and I look both ways to see if there’s anything strange before I get off. It would’ve been easier to take the tram running along the other side of uni but then. I wouldn’t have been able to spend those last few minutes on the tram talking to them before they got off. Sometimes I go past my way to do things like that, and it’s really not that hard to walk through the uni grounds anyway.
I usually go down Tin Alley at night, but today just feel like walking through Monash Road since I used to do it often. Or perhaps it’s out of habit since I usually go down here to get a coffee every second morning
I look around at the buildings on my right, recalling that when I started uni, they were still under construction. But after they just opened, I remember that I used to love coming here.
Oh. I walk past the building with the food court and look at the seating outside in front of the glass, remembering that I used to always study and hang out here with a friend. A former friend perhaps.
It’s not like I’m still as bitter about what happened before, but I guess Becky still remembers the fallout and she was the one who heard the most about it. I did tell her not to talk about it in front of anyone else so when her tongue slipped earlier, she really had to tiptoe around it.
But I guess that after all this time, now I just feel a bit regretful about it all.
I don’t think that Lucy made the wrong choice to
study an Honours instead, especially when she had the marks to take that opportunity. She’s always been wanting to go down the academia pathway and I was kind of immature at that time, really betting on that expectation that she would follow me to study Master’s, ‘cause it’d be nice to have a friend to study with, just like we used to do back in undergrad. I pace past the buildings and through the square, with my ears tingling from only the sound of my footsteps and the leaves crunching underneath them.
Lucy and I took the same Crime, Criminology, and Critique subject back in first year, when we were fresh out of high school. We kind of only started hanging out because we didn’t have any other friends from high school in the same uni, but over time we definitely vibed and I realised how cool she was. She didn’t speak much, and she was pretty cold and standoffish when I was trying to talk to her at first. But after I got to know her, she was basically a yapper with a soft-spoken voice. It was fun because we liked the same things and did a lot of things together. We both liked bouldering and after we went for the first time together, we became regulars and would go together on the weekends. We both played basketball so we tried out for the uni team together and played a few dozen games together over the two and half years that she was still on the team.
Well now, she’s quit ever since she started her honours, and I know she’s studying her PhD but I don’t know if it’s still here or if she went somewhere else for it. I still have her blocked on Instagram, but occasionally when I get emotionally tumultuous, I’d check her profile since it’s public. I take out my phone as I walk past the gym and into the front gate building of the college. On the way back to my room on the second floor, I manage to find her new posts, which are just of her wishing her new friends birthday wishes and either at dinner or parties with them. She seems to have gotten more time to do other stuff ever since she finished that Honours year, since I remember that it was like she completely disappeared that year as she was devoting so much time to it.
I grab my basketball uniform from the closet and fold it into a bag and then into my backpack. But even so, I had a few other friends doing their honours, albeit in other fields, and they didn’t need to cut off all contact from humanity like she did. But again, maybe doing an Honours in criminology is tough, I don’t think I would’ve been able to handle it myself. And I have team practice early morning tomorrow, I don’t know how I’m gonna handle that.
Illustration by Indigo Jessell
by
Photography
Ashley Ann Tan
Photography by Jessica Fanwong
Photography by Ashley Ann Tan
Photography by Dane Van Der
Photography by Emerald Smith
Photography by Emerald Smith
Photography by Jill Holtzclaw
Diamond Girl: Being in Jubilant Awe of Queen Cindy Lee
by Dom Lepore
It was a joy witnessing an anti-streaming, outsider artist receive so much acclaim in today’s rapid media landscape. Buzzing coverage from many of my favourite music publications led me to discover the celebrated project that is Diamond Jubilee (2024), the extravagant double album by Cindy Lee, the glammed up drag alter ego of guitarist and songwriter Patrick Flegel. A hot point of discussion was its unconventional distribution of a WAV download on an amateurishly put-together GeoCities homepage. The two-hour album is split across two discs, the first mainly featuring palatable country-laden songs, while the second ceaselessly comes down into heart-arching balladry. The songs feature guitars engulfed in hazy echoes; melodies recalling ‘60s and ‘70s standards, doowop, and kitschy girl-group pop; and they will have you asking, “This sounds familiar, where have I heard this before?” Diamond Jubilee has been discussed at length by more than enough devoted music listeners, but what I’m more captivated by is Flegel’s liminal persona—and, by extension, music—which Flegel has said to Bandcamp allows them to adopt a “diva fantasy.”
Who is Patrick Flegel anyway? Before donning the blue beehive bob and spangly dress, their immersion with femininity was limited to their stint in the Canadian post-punk band Women. Known for propulsive guitar work with a spindly restraint, its members were actually all cis men. Flegel later conceived a more fruitful musical identity from Women’s titular gender play, also telling Bandcamp, “Ugh, I’m so bored of being a boy in a fuckin’ guitar band.” Transforming stoic indie rock into splendorous songwriting on longing and lonesomeness is a marked artistic progression. They distil these reflections through their mystifying Cindy Lee queen character, who is inspired by the appearance and life of late pop singer Karen Carpenter. Carpenter’s story is one about being suffocated by stardom—a misfit who sought fame and connection, but unwillingly caved into the darkness of overwhelming and victimising tabloid sensationalism. Perhaps that’s why Flegel’s presence and output as Lee are opaque. They’ve expressed their reluctance to be personal in interviews to avoid saying something that’s nobody’s business. The seclusion also lends itself to Diamond Jubilee’s unconventionality: Its glaring absence from streaming platforms is a protective veil on their music and drag persona.
Lee is not only an avenue for enchanting gender
expression, but an exquisite nurturer of Flegel’s intimate music. When she seldom emerges in the public eye is when the glimpses into Flegel’s worldview confidently appear. They may come from the same soul, but Flegel and Lee are aesthetically quite different. That’s where the parallels to Lee and my bob-haired gothic drag queen (as illustrated on the page) exist. When I typically speak with fellow creatives and articulate my own musical experiences, a guise of professionalism and normality envelops me. Beneath that is a self-indulgent alter ego who doesn’t take herself too seriously. She also scarcely comes out—and only then to those deserving to know. Lee’s fleeting presence fondly mirrors that of my likeness. Furthermore, the Diamond Jubilee rollout has inspired my desire to have readers organically stumble across my writing, rather than conform to overly-sanitised and algorithm-focused mediums like TikToks and Instagram Reels.
When I listen to Diamond Jubilee, I find myself substituting Flegel’s persona for my own. The record begins with the ceremonial, string-heavy ‘Glitz’, opening like curtain drapes to cheers and confetti—the star of the night entering with a triumphant stride in Nancy Sinatra boots. The aural equivalent of a cowgirl hat is donned during the bluesy melancholia in the Americana of ‘Dallas’, which leans into Midwestern wistful longing. The latter track’s guitar chords are regurgitated on ‘Demon Bitch’, the drag persona standing in as that titular uninhibited nuisance. That same likeness also is delivering the yearning ballad ‘What’s It Going to Take’, dramatically singing about getting over their estranged lovers. Seizing an album like this, abundant in universal notions that feel like they belong to you, is a sound conduit for articulating my precarious lived experiences in a real yet imaginative manner.
Cindy Lee is a marvel. Flegel adorns themselves with her, not only to take them someplace else, but to conceal their work in attractive mystique—a shield from the burdens of conformity in order to be your most authentic self. How wonderful. I am beyond grateful for Flegel’s wide-open confessions channelled through this gorgeous guise. As I continue to understand myself, maybe my queen will further grace my work. Actually, with you reading along, she has briefly revealed herself—just like listening to Lee in Flegel’s significant contribution to independent music.
Illustration by Isabelle Concorde
Home is Cipta Theatre Company at their Belonging Showcase
by Claire Le Blond
Three shows. Three nights. Following their debut, the Last Supper, Cipta’s Belonging Showcase endeavoured to pose a resonant question to its keen audience: where is home? From Singapore to India to Australia, the Showcase brought much cheer and heartfelt joy to the Guild Theatre. Produced by Cipta’s dynamite duo Jessica Fanwong and Jessica Tran, the show was bound to delight, especially with the bio box team blaring ABBA bangers from loudspeakers as the audience entered the theatre. You can’t go wrong from there. Beginning with Michelle Yu’s piece, Neither Here Nor There is a poignant testimony to the feeling of going home. Yu works primarily with a series of monologues, reflecting on a family’s move to Australia from Singapore and an evocative introspection into a mother-daughter relationship. Under Victoria Winata’s skilled direction, both are portrayed with touching realism, laden with cultural nuance. Christie Ch’ng, with her knack for capturing conflict and cheer in one, is perfectly suited as the Main Character. Whether arguing with her mother, reminiscing over her childhood in Singapore, or forging new pathways with the Friend (played by the serene Weiying Irene Lu), it is easy to root for her. Crystal So, as the Mother, is brilliant. She captures both the loving exasperation and the inevitable cultural disconnect that comes from a family uprooted. So reminded me of my own mother – the same intonation, the same tired inflections, and the earnest expression of love through food. The choice to use filmed footage and voiceover with close-up projections of the actors enjoying kaya toast and roti enriched the text visually. Yu’s writing resonated with me strongly, with lines and references that felt like they’d been taken verbatim from my Singaporean-Malaysian family’s Whatsapp chat. However, I personally struggled with the piece’s structure. The monologues, though truly moving and well-written, were largely situated towards the beginning of an already short piece. It almost felt like the audience didn’t truly earn them nor their subsequent emotional payoff – like the pacing of the play didn’t align with the emotional tempo of the viewers. To necessitate and provoke the pathos that the monologues and performers deserved, starting the play with the duologue between Ch’ng and Lu’s characters could
have possibly achieved this. Overall, Neither Here Nor There brimmed with a pulsing emotional heart filled with promise. The Misfits was pitched as a play about a demon going vegan amidst a family fighting for an inheritance. While I’d argue the play was more of a horror-comedy ensemble piece about the family itself rather than about Mara (played by Akshita Benny with a earnest charm well-suited to the premise of a vegan demon) Sasha Singh’s narrative is phenomenal nevertheless. South Asian mythology interwoven within a complex nuanced exploration of tradition, power, identity, AND theatre? They ate…literally. It’s about a family-business-conglomerate of flesh-eating demons. At one point, there’s a demon from a jar labelled “Flesh Chips.” It’s great. Cipta should sell those as merchandise. Benny, Ishani Phatarpekar, Nishka Fernando, Stuti Ghosh, and Krishitaa Purusothaman are a riotous ensemble. Nishka Varghese has an excellent grasp of dynamics in her direction, bringing out the dysfunction and the drama with ease. There was a sort of dual plot; each character had their own unique, secret problem, which was paired with the dispute over who was to inherit the company. It was deeply entertaining to watch. Phatarpekar and Fernando are dynamite together, with sensational warring sibling energy. Purusothaman easily had the best comedic timing out of the lot as a laidback very clearly Gen Z demon. The stalwart presence of Ghosh as the matriarch serves to make the final reveal more fruitful in its shocking aftermath. There were a few moments towards the beginning where some vocal projection could have been implemented to make the beginning exposition around the conflict clearer. Yet, with such a fun ensemble – especially in the dark red light moments of the actors going gremlin mode – the conflict continued to entertain. The final showing, The Cut That Always Bleeds, was the perfect choice to conclude the show. Hallie Vermeend’s compelling writing style and Zara Taqvi’s sleek direction epitomised the real ‘experimental’ side of the showcase. From the non-linear interweaving of the challenges facing medical students Mimi (Isabel D’Souza), Dan (Tom Worsnop) and Petra (Mateenah Adeleke), to the heartbeats rippling through the theatre, to the careful balance of
forceful duologues versus earnest direct addresses, to the striking lighting work; it was a masterful blend of narrative and theatre tech magic. The complexities of Melbourne sharehouse life are captured both in the set motifs – the gorgeous lamp which elicited an audible response from the people in the audience at my showing – and within the development of the students’ interwoven relationships. D’Souza, Worsnop, and Adeleke are a wonderful trio, whose chemistry still comes out on top even against the striking tech work around them. I found myself rooting for all three of them at any given time, amidst conflict, resolution, and earth-shattering reveals all at once. As a team, these actors handled the challenge of a non-linear tale with clear, effortless synergy. I do wish we could have seen more of the three actually being med students though I can understand the ‘cut’ of this potential plot point (pun intended, sorry Farrago). These three stories could not have come to life without the wonder that is the production team. With three shows, I cannot even imagine the amount of work needed from Production Manager Ella Kerr and Production Assistant Kristy Cornell to coordinate all of this. The design work of Aminah Tasnuva (Set) and Dahlia Karam (Design Assistant & Props Master) rendered the set a flexible and comforting quality, as well as creating a homely atmosphere. Sound & Lighting Designer Penelope Toong’s tech prowess was on full display here, giving each individual piece its own feel with seeming ease, every change of light every new sound cue perfectly suited to each show. My props to Stage Manager Shu Kei Anson Ng and Assistant Stage Manager Bella Russell (who doubles as Costume Designer, fabulous costume work) for managing the transitions of each piece with masterful care. I commend the work of Equity Officer Tara Jindal, Publicity Officer Michelle Huang and Production & Equity Consultant Nabila Malik. Fundamentally, Cipta’s Showcase reminds us that home is where the heart is, even when the heart is lost at times. I could easily believe that I was watching real families, families who had upended their lives to come and work out their many, many issues on the stage. There was a real love, a real sense of belonging.
Cipta Theatre Company is a UniMelb affiliated student theatre company newly founded in 2023 aimed at supporting emerging theatre makers and uplifting diverse voices. Follow @cipta.theatre on insta to find out more.
Photography by Alain Nguyen
Finding identity and voice through English
by Shixin Wang
Have you ever learned English as a second language? If so, then the play English will resonate with you to a greater or lesser extent; if English is your mother tongue, then this play will let you temporarily experience the uncertainty and anxiety of a second language learner in an unfamiliar linguistic environment.
The comedy tells the story of an adult English class in Iran in 2008. Four students, under the guidance of their teacher Marjan, are studying English for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam. The adult students have different reasons for learning English. They span a wide range of ages, genders and professions, and their initial English abilities differ between them. The teacher, who once lived in Manchester, England, for nine years, is at odds with her students' love of Farsi. In the end, Farsi seems to ‘win’: the "Only English" sign on the classroom whiteboard is finally erased.
Most of the lines in this play are in English, but a few are in Farsi. Most of the characters also speak their English with a heavy accent, which to be honest, caused me some difficulty to understand at first, especially as a non-native English speaker. But I don't see this as a disadvantage; on the contrary, such a linguistic environment can create tension and discomfort for native English speakers, which is rare to most of them. English, as one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, gives them the unique privilege of travelling to many countries without language barriers. The dialogue in Farsi places an audience of presumably native English speakers in a foreigner's shoes, which is exactly what many people feel when they first come to English-speaking countries.
The most touching part of the play was when the grandmother, Roya, kept calling her son in Canada, hoping to find out about the visa and flight arrangements to go there. However, her son never picks up the phone. I was deeply moved when Roya, with tears in her eyes, complained on the phone: "you are even more indifferent when you speak English" and "you gave my granddaughter
a name that I can't even pronounce". When we speak a foreign language, we seem to pull away from our past identities and enter a new culture. But can we really cut ourselves off from the past? What was surprising was the development of one of the characters, Omid. This young man initially demonstrates a proficiency in English that sets him apart from other beginners. He shows a rich vocabulary in games and watches English films with his teacher after class without difficulty. But as his conflict with another student, Elham, intensifies, his ‘true’ identity is revealed. He grew up with American cousins and has spoken English since he was a child. While the other students and the teacher feel betrayed, he feels offended that it is only in this classroom that his English is considered ‘accent-free’ and ‘perfect’.
When I was growing up learning English, accent was always an important criterion for determining English proficiency. I was always expected to imitate 'pure' American or British pronunciation, and students were even ashamed of their accents. I didn't realise that even native English speakers are also bothered by their accents. This characterisation takes the script to another level: what is the perfect English? If language is only used as a tool, then it seems that the purpose of learning a language is only to achieve a 'perfect' level of proficiency, but the culture and identity behind it is also lost. English is like a knife dipped in honey. Behind the funny dialogues, people are simultaneously losing and searching for identities and cultures. It is not only second language learners who relate to this , but also native English speakers who are placed in the ‘alienating’ situation like the former. The play is tightly plotted and the actors are incredibly talented; however, the set is a little monotonous. This does not detract from the fact that it is a good play, both thought-provoking and laugh-out-loud funny.
by Pia Johnson
Photography
Large Mirage are Keepin’ it Groovy!
by Sabine Pentecost
“Bring back rock ‘n’ roll!” I pleaded to the heavens one lonely night. At last, my prayers were answered at the Large Mirage show at Perseverance, Fitzroy.
The Sydney/Eora-based foursome takes the concept of late-60s, early-70s rock revival on board to create an era-accurate sound, drawing inspiration from the likes of The Who, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac and The Doors.
So, on a warm Friday night, my friends and I donned our vintage-est dresses and our danci-est boots to witness the resurrection of fun Aussie rock. From the very first song, my friends and I were mesmerised by the sheer talent displayed on stage. Large Mirage made executing melodies and inter-instrumental relationships that dripped with technicality look easy, a feat which put the crowd at an awe-inspired ease by extension. It was immediately evident that the band was having a great time on stage, plastering a smile on my face throughout the whole performance.
The spirit of rock’s golden age was truly alive in the group’s costumes, with flares abounding across the stage and the crowd cultivating a time capsule of early 1970s energy in Persa.
Lead vocalist, Malia, remained perched atop a stool for much of the performance and left the stage on crutches, but she didn’t let a broken foot stop the groove for a second. Instrumental sections of songs were accompanied by dancing, regardless of injury.
The day after this gig, Malia did go to the hospital and get a cast to replace Friday night's cowboy boot moon-boot. The band then headed straight to play at Chopped music festival—commitment to the music that I can only aspire to.
Something that stood out to me as refreshingly unique about Large Mirage’s performance was the seamlessly concocted balance between every instrument. I loved that the songs’ instrumentals were split equally with lead vocals, which really served to platform each member and each instrument completely during the performance. This adds to the sense of the band as a bonded unit and ensures you are slapped across the face with talent from every corner of the stage. After the show, I sat down with Malia, Kolya, Blake and Dan to speak about their process as a band and some of their influences.
Large Mirage have spent five years assembling the perfect quartet, and perfected it they have. The group was started in 2019 by guitarist Kolya and bassist Blake, with Dan and Malia (on drums and lead vocals, respectively) jumping onboard since. Malia shared that as soon as she started singing with the band it “felt right,”
which truly comes across when they perform together
“You have some great guitar riffs and impressive, sprawling instrumental sections in your songs, are you meticulous when it comes to crafting those or are they just born from playing around and having a good time?” I ask the band.”
“Yeah, it’s different every night,” Dan tells me. “There are some standard riffs and sections that we plan or repeat… but that sort of improvisation is very of genre.”
It certainly adds to the effortless, 70s style of the group’s music and stage presence, letting the influence of artists such as Led Zeppelin and The Doors shine through with a highly unique and personal twist.
“I’ll give a nod or a look,” Kolya reveals, which tells Dan and Blake what he’s about to do. Kolya’s guitar solos were utterly mesmerising to observe, and so to learn that they are primarily improvised was incredibly impressive. The way that Dan, on drums, and Blake, on bass, follow the contours of the guitar melodies so effortlessly confirms a level of connectedness that exists within the dynamic of the band. They are entirely in-tune with one another.
“Why Large Mirage?” I pose to the group. “What was the inspiration behind that name?”
“Well, we started with Mirage,” says Blake. “But we couldn’t just be called that, so a few variations were cycled through.”
“We had Sargeant Mirage,” Kolya pipes up. But Large Mirage is memorable because it sort of rhymes “in an Aussie accent”. Dan shares with me his Band Name Golden Rule: “if you say your name to someone and they say: ‘Huh?’ more than once, he says, then it’s not a good name. Large Mirage usually passes that test.” Discussing influences, I asked the band whether their Australian-ness gets incorporated into the music despite the heavy British and American dominance during that era of rock music. They responded to me with a resounding and unanimous “no”, but Dan offered that any Australian influences he has are mostly from modern musicians. He cites the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets as one of those sources of inspiration. Large Mirage is incredibly excited to be opening for the Screaming Jets’ Life Blood Tour in November at the Forum, Melbourne. As of now, Large Mirage are shacking up for a stint at the Perseverance in October, so make sure to check out a show on any Friday night this month. The band guarantees that “no two Large Mirage shows are ever the same”, so look forward to a unique and mystifying night! Large Mirage’s newest EP ‘Be My Guide/Be My Friend’ is also out now on Spotify.
VIDEOGRAPHY MANAGERS
Nathan Pham
It was halfway through the year when I got the opportunity to go for Videography Team Manager for Farrago, and I’m so happy I went for it. In a relatively short time I’ve gotten to do so much and meet so many amazing people, and I’ll be forever grateful for being apart of Farrago this year!
I would just like to thank my co-manager, Angela, as well as Deidre and the Editors for all the support and hard work they’ve put in only one semester. Building a department from scratch isn’t easy, but we’ve planted the seeds, made some banging Instagram reels and I can’t wait to see what video content at Farrago looks like in 2025. Stay tuned!
Angela Nacor
Semester 2 marked the start of my stint as Videography Manager at Farrago and it’s been a crazy ride since. I am so grateful to get to do what we do, especially as it’s given me the chance to meet some of the best people on campus. Many many thanks to our hardworking team: my co-manager, Nathan, who’s not only a gun at video content but also in AV camera gear, Deidre for all the hard work she’s put in (especially with Fodder content), and lastly, our Editors for taking us in with infinite support. I’ve already learnt so much from all of you. Semester 2 brought in 18 videos, 60k views in total across platforms, and heaps of fulfilling stress – I can’t wait to do it all again and see what we cook up in 2025. Let’s gooooooo!
Weiying (Irene) Lu & Stephen Zavitsanos
As this year draws to a close, it’s inspiring to look back on the journey we’ve had in Farratography. This year was one of rebuilding, reimagining, and reaching new heights. When we set out to re-establish the photography department, our vision was clear: to create a space where photographers from across the campus could come together, share their talents, and grow both as individuals and as a community. And looking at what we’ve achieved, it’s clear that we have truly brought this vision to life.Our first priority was to find and welcome new members to Farrago Photography, and we are so proud of the team we’ve created. We recruited a passionate, talented, and diverse group of photographers who have each brought their unique perspective and voice to the department. Watching each of you push boundaries, support each other, and bring your own ideas to the table has been nothing short of inspiring. Together, we’ve turned Farrago Photography into a vibrant community where creativity thrives and collaboration flourishes.One of our standout achievements this year was contributing to Farrago Magazine. Every photo we’ve shared on its pages tells a story, offering a glimpse into the experiences, perspectives, and emotions that define our campus. From covering events to capturing quiet, powerful moments, each photographer brought their best to this project. It was a privilege to watch these contributions take shape, and we know that the magazine would not have been the same without the dedication, skill, and artistry of our photographers.Perhaps the highlight of our year was the Farratography Exhibition. This event was a labor of love, and it’s hard to put into words the pride we feel for what we accomplished. The exhibition was more than just a showcase; it was a celebration of the hard work, talent, and passion that everyone brought to the department. Every piece on display reflected not only the creativity of the photographer but also the spirit of our community—a place where ideas are shared freely, and every voice is valued. Seeing the campus community come together to engage with our work and support each other was a powerful reminder of why we do what we do.As we look toward the future, our hope forFarratography is that it will continue to be a place where people from all backgrounds and skill levels feel welcome. We hope it remains a space where students can express themselves, explore new ways of seeing the world, and take creative risks. Our commitment to inclusivity, diversity, and openness is what makes this department so special, and we are confident that the groundwork we’ve laid this year will help it thrive in the years to come.Thank you to each and every one of you who contributed to making this year so successful. Your hard work, creativity, and dedication have shaped Farrago
Photography into something truly remarkable, and we couldn’t be more grateful. Let’s carry forward the energy and passion we’ve built here, continuing to create, inspire, and tell stories through the lens. Here’s to another year of growth, collaboration, and unforgettable moments.
Photography Managers, Stephen and Irene
Harrison George & Lauren Williams
What a year it has been for Fodder!
RADIO FODDER MANAGERS
Looking back on 2024, Lauren and I can barely comprehend how much traction Fodder has gained through a year packed with events.
Early Semester 1 saw us take the reigns over the relatively-defunct station – going into 2024, we had the goal to reestablish Fodder as a community more than anything else, and with this in mind we went in all gun’s blazing. In Week 1, we held our first Fodder Tuesday, as they became affectionately known. Under the beating sun, and for some reason on a full-size stage erected in the amphitheatre, we hauled in some turntables and spun records for all to hear.
Soon after, we held a sold-out Trivia Night. Show hosts from our new community of music nerds put a full-capacity Clyde to the test with some of the most (often impossibly) difficult trivia questions. This established Fodder early on as a cohort for everyone with a unique or niche interest in the arts and was essential for forming the station’s new identity for 2024. Perhaps our strangest event was a collaboration at the end of Semester 2 with MACSS. With some very questionable French exchange student DJ’s, we danced the night away at our new fav Creatures, kicking til the early hours somewhat irresponsibly close to SWOTVAC.
After some rejuvenation over the icy winter break, Lauren, the team and I devised what was to be our biggest endeavour yet. Armed with almost no budget, Rodeo Fodder will go down as the greatest zero-budget student event in Student Media.
Lauren made some incredible decorations – a banner, and Cactussy the cutout cactus who suspiciously went missing that evening …. – and without the budget for a live band, the ever-iconic, half-ironic Brokebacks were formed. As Willie Nelson once sang, these Cowboys were very (un)secretly fond of each other, performing to the packed venue two sets (with a highly questionable encore). Though we are still concerned for Cactussy’s wellbeing, the night was an enormous success for the station and us manager’s hold it in top regard as reflecting our strict DIY ethos we see as essential to Fodder’s revival.
Rounding out the Semester, Fodder came to the rescue of its own maternal body UMSU – Battle of the Bands was saved by the Fodder team, scrounging together a talented lineup of performers in the eleventh hour – and building an incredible Web dressing the stage. The studio saw some wonderful DJ’s into the early hours, Boiler Room adjacent, and we also formed our lovely relationship with Campus security to be later tested….
At FODDERTHON – a 72-hour extravaganza of continuous broadcasting and antics. I remember vividly the smell of the unventilated studio, testifying to the commitment of our loyal broadcasters. Thanks to Charlotte, Ollie and Maisie who rode the first evening out til 4am. Night two featured a particularly special Raveo Fodder, where NoGenre organised a studio party that saw our access privileges to Building 168 questioned – but what an evening it was. A much calmer day three rounded out one of the longest non-political sit ins seen in uni history, testifying to the strength the Fodder Community had found by Semester 2.
Concluding the year, we celebrated the team at Fodder’s speech night. It was incredible to hear of the value people had for the kinship found at this station with particular mentions to Hypernormal host Masha’s incredible speech.
Exhausting an exorbitant bartab, the Fodder team rode out 2024 with a bang.
Thanks are in order for the year to every contributer – be that in any capacity; even the ones who just hang out in the studio. But Lauren and I would like to thank in particular:Joel, Ling, Gunjan and Jess for their relentless support of the station,
Jack Loftus, who seemed to do a lot of random helpful things as Producer. Maisie, for leading the development of a new artist interviews team
Tom, for grinding on Fodder Tuesdays even through the iciest winter months
All of our incredible show hosts, and producer teamIt has incredible to watch this station grow over the past twelve months, and we believe that the torch will keep burning with the strong community and DIY ethos Lauren and I have sought to bring into Fodder. Every person who has contributed in any capacity this year has contributed to the kaleidoscopic personality of this organization, and we’re so thankful to all of you.
FOR STUDENTS AND BY STUDENTS FOREVER!
Much love, Managers
Lauren + Harrison
REVIEWS MANAGER
Hayley Yeow
It's been a busy year on the Reviews Department end! To most Farrago team members, they may not have seen me or Ruby in person (I promise to attend more events next year) but we've silently published over 150 reviews just this year alone which I'm super proud of. When I became one of two managers for the department, I was so excited to help people go to the events they wanted to go to, and to help them publish their written work. I had been a writer on the Reviews Team before that and enjoyed it immensely
I'd like to thank the team of writers this year who have been so proactive with writing their reviews and raising their hands for opportunities. I've read a huge number of reviews which have been thought-provoking and so well-written that it made me a little envious. I hope to read more of what is written next year, and I hope I can continue to publish more of them.
I'd also like to thank Ruby who has been incredible at keeping this team organised and making me much less stressed than I would be had she not been there.
Sending love, Hayley
