2018 Edition 8 by Farrago Magazine

FARRAGO EDITION EIGHT â&#x20AC;¢ 2018 ART BY

ART BY

CONTENTS CAMPUS

COLLECTIVE

4 6 7 9

2 3

9 10 11 12 14 15 16 18 20 21 22 25 26 27

Thank Yous News in Brief October/November Calendar Creswick Changes Amelia Costigan Cops on Campus Medha Vernekar Student Election Results Roundup Alain Nguyen and Annette Syahlani Tribunal Throws Out More!’s Appeal Medha Vernekar Renewed Constitution and Governance... Nurul Juhria Binte Kamal Shocking: Lecture Attendance Low Maggy Liu Whose Credit is it Anyway? Alain Nguyen Women and the Culture of Philosophy Corey McCabe Student Poverty Levels High Lucy Turton Accepting the Uncertain Emma White From a Passion, to a Club Ezra Bagnun Office Bearer Reports annual general meeting Klaus Himes Bard Times: Part Eight James Gordon The Grub

CREATIVE 8 13 17 28 31 35 40 48 49 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 60

NONFICTION

63 64

32 34 36 39 41 42 43 44 45 46 76 84

The Problem with Travel Lucy Turton The Rise of the “Pretty Boy” Lindsay Wong Fodder Feature: Spilling the Tea Trent Vu Silent Bodies Luke Macaronas Keep Faith a Mystery Andie Moore Keeping Up with the Cryptocurrencies Kaavya Jha The Taste of Society Annette Syahlani Photography and Death Daniel O’Neil Religion and the Climate Apocalypse Katie Doherty The Life Aquatic with Jason Statham Rohan Byrne The “A” Word Veera Ramayah Next Wave: Everyone is an Arts Writer For and Against: Farrago Sarah Peters, Lucy Williams and Stephanie Zhang

Editorial Team

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 78 80 81 82 83

Seasons / Summer Ilsa Harun Photography—Caroline Voelker Photography—Linda Date Photography—Raymond Wu Art—Miranda Park Art—Joo Liew Art—Charlotte Docksey Art—Yushi Wu A Small Collection of Things in Reverse Jordan De Visser pescivore and cavalier Alston Chu TO ALL THE GIRLS I’VE LOVED BEFORE Belle Gill Bananas: A Timeline Charlotte Daraio Photography—Vivienne Tran Micro Village Elyssia Koulouris The Wall Luoyang Chen It’s Just One of Those Things Lucy Myers more than wedded to the house Natalie Fong Chun Min Art—Tara Raemerd new york poems Sharon Du In utero waste Ruxandra Maritiu Semantics Carolyn Huane My Chinese name is my middle name... Rachel Toh Mary Shelley Died For Our Sins Danielle Scrimshaw Polysporin Luke Macaronas 七封情书 Amanda Tan winter Sarah Bostock morning sun Sarah Peters Mince Meat for Magpies Alaina Dean Art—Wen Qiu Pillow Melissa Lam Life of Art and Ionian cup 570–550 BCE Matthew Lucas Wojczys Flash Fiction: ENDINGS Expose / Syria Ilsa Harun

ART BY FERNWEH PHOTOGRAPHY

COLLECTIVE

EDITORIAL

oly shit, where do we even start? It’s been a hell of a fucking year, and we’ve had the time of our lives running this chaotic ship. This is our final print edition of the year, but we’ll continue producing online content until 30 November. After that, we’re leaving you in the safe hands of our successors, Ruby, Carolyn, Katie and Stephanie, whose beautiful faces you can see alongside ours in the photo above. On that note, remember to apply to be a part of the media department next year! You can find all the details about positions and applications on the inside back page. Each of us got involved in the media department by applying for a position, so who knows? Maybe you’ll be the next Farrago editor. Keep checking in on our Facebook page for more events this year, such as the Fitzpatrick Awards night—which will occur towards the end of November. A huge thank you to our friends and family for supporting us through a wonderfully hellish year. Thank you for loving us and listening to us when we needed to talk—we wouldn’t have survived this incredible year without you. This is a humblebrag, but we’re really proud of ourselves and every single contributor to Farrago, Radio Fodder, Farrago Video and Above Water this year. We’ve expanded Farrago’s online news presence and multimedia coverage (with, for example, the introduction of Facebook live coverage), so that we are truly a 21st century news outlet. We established new photography and satire teams and started paying a few dedicated students who help run Radio Fodder, Farrago Video and our social media team. The creative section of this magazine is bigger and better than it has ever been, and we played around with funky covers and a photography section. Farrago is more jam-packed with breathtaking writing and artwork than ever before in its 93-year history. We had so many great submissions to this edition that we decided to add an extra 16 pages, to fit as much in as we could before they take this job out of our sticky, chocolate-covered hands. In the campus section, check out Alain Nguyen and Annette Syahlani’s student election results roundup (page 10) and Medha Vernekar’s explanation of what happened with the electoral tribunal (11). If you don’t like elections (fair enough), read Maggy Liu’s analysis of a University paper looking at why students aren’t attending lectures (14). In the nonfiction section, Lindsay Wong’s ‘The Rise of the “Pretty Boy”’ analyses the role of the rise of K-pop in the West’s changing perception of Asian men (30), Luke Macaronas interviews the artistic director of the Australian Ballet (34) and Veera Ramayah breaks down ‘The “A” Word’—”appropriation” (48). This month’s creative section is pretty meaty—and we’d suggest reading it through! But if you’re looking for specifics, Natalie Fong Chun Min’s beautiful poem to her mother, ‘more than wedded to the house’ (60–63), is our longest lyric yet, while Amanda Tan’s ‘七封情书’ (70) warmed our cold, cynical hearts. If you’re looking for some longer, scarier fiction though, Alaina Dean’s ‘Mince Meat for Magpies’ (73–75) might just do the job. There is lots of wonderful art in this edition, such as Vivienne Tran’s floral dreamscapes (55) and Charlotte Docksey’s haunting portrait (40). Also, make sure to flip to Wen Qiu’s detailed sculpture spread (78). Without our contributors and readers, we would be nothing. Thank you for all of your graphics and words, and thank you for sticking with us on this journey. Ashleigh, Esther, Jesse, Monique

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARAH PETERS

COLLECTIVE

THE FARRAGO TEAM EDITORS

Ashleigh Barraclough Esther Le Couteur Monique O’Rafferty Jesse Paris-Jourdan

CONTRIBUTORS

Ezra Bangun Sarah Bostock Amelia Costigan Luoyang Chen Alston Chu Charlotte Daraio Alaina Dean Jordan De Visser Sharon Du Natalie Fong Chun Min Belle Gill James Gordon Jemma Gray Elizabeth Haigh Klaus Himes Carolyn Huane Nurul Juhria Binte Kamal Elyssia Koulouris Melissa Lam Joel Lee Maggy Liu Luke Macaronas Ruxandra Maritiu Corey McCabe Lucy Myers Alain Nguyen Daniel O’Neil Sarah Peters Danielle Scrimshaw Li Shan Annette Syahlani Amanda Tan Rachel Toh Prachi Tyagi Lucy Turton David Vadori Medha Vernekar Tharidi Walimunige Emma White Lucy Williams Matthew Lucas Wojczys Lindsay Wong Meg Worrell Stephanie Zhang

SUBEDITORS

James Agathos Kyra Agathos Kergen Angel Elle Atack Georgia Atkinson Daniel Beratis Rachael Booth Kasumi Borczyk Jessica Chen David Churack Noni Cole Nicole de Souza Alaina Dean Jocelyn Deane Katie Doherty Emma Ferris Abigail Fisher Belle Gill Jessica Hall Jessica Herne Kangli Hu Jenina Ibañez Esmé James An Jiang Annie Jiang Eleanor Kirk Ruby Kraner-Tucci Angela Le Tessa Marshall Valerie Ng April Nougher-Dayhew Isa Pendragon Ruby Perryman Sarah Peters Lauren Powell Rhiannon Raphael Danielle Scrimshaw Elizabeth Seychell Chiara Situmorang Greer Sutherland Catherine Treloar Hiruni Walimunige Sophie Wallace Nina Wang Mark Yin Stephanie Zhang Yan Zhuang

GRAPHICS

Alexandra Burns Minnie Chantpakpimon Cathy Chen Bethany Cherry Renee de Vlugt Tia Dalupan-Wong Linda Date Nicola Dobinson Charlotte Docksey Rebecca Fowler Ilsa Harun Carolyn Huane Lauren Hunter Ayonti Mahreen Huq Winnie Jiao Asher Karahasan Sharon Huang Liang Joo Liew Lisa Linton Hanna Liu Kira Martin Sanchari Mondal Rachel Morley Amani Nasarudin Miranda Park Sarah Peters Fernweh Photography Wen Qiu Tara Raemerd Nellie Seale Poorniima Shanmugam Vivienne Tran Dinh Vo Caroline Voelker Elaina Wang Raymond Wu Yushi Wu David Zeleznikow-Johnston Qun Zhang

COVER

Carolyn Huane

ART BY TIA DALUPAN-WONG

COLUMNISTS

Rohan Byrne Katie Doherty James Gordon Neala Guo (online) Ilsa Harun Kaavya Jha Luke Macaronas Andie Moore Ashrita Ramamurthy (online) Veera Ramayah Ailsa Traves (online) Trent Vu

SOCIAL MEDIA

Zoë Alford Alex Epstein Ilsa Harun Nurul Juhria Binte Kamal Jack Langan Angela Le Christopher Hon Sum Ling Lara Navarro Lauren Powell Trent Vu

Farrago is the student magazine of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), produced by the media department. Farrago is published by the general secretary of UMSU, Daniel Beratis. The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of UMSU, the printers or the editors. Farrago is printed by Printgraphics, care of our silky smooth shiny soul mate, Nigel Quirk. All writing and artwork remains the property of the creators. This collection is ©️ Farrago and Farrago reserves the right to republish material in any format.

COLLECTIVE

THANK YOUS Campus reporters Thank you for coming to every meeting and contributing your ideas, sources and knowledge to the discussion. You’ve done a brilliant job at exposing wrongdoing, keeping institutions accountable, and telling the multifarious stories of the student experience. We can’t wait to see what stories you all manage to break in the future. Columnists Your writing and art never failed to make us laugh, think and wonder at the incredible amount of talent in this community. Every one of you has improved a lot in your writing this year—and tracking this improvement (and deluding ourselves into thinking we had anything to do with it) has been one of the greatest joys of our time as editors. Graphics team Our wonderful graphies—thank you for making Farrago wonderfully beautiful. Your willingness to experiment with new styles, themes and media never failed to astound us. It was a pleasure watching you evolve this year—you are all going to go on to do amazingly arty things. And to our eight cover artists—you’re the reason people pick up Farrago. The Grub What started out as an attempt to be an inferior Betoota Advocate flourished into an inferior #depressionmemes Facebook page. A special thanks to Alex Epstein—our cheekiest, awkwardest child, whose writing ability and understanding of what makes people laugh still amazes us—for making it all happen. Photography team This was the photography team’s first year, and we’re endlessly thankful to Alain Nguyen and Dilpreet Kaur Taggar for helping us run it. You covered numerous rallies and provided us with beautiful photos for our photography spread in edition six. You saved us on so many occasions. Radio Fodder team With a new studio and website on their list of accomplishments, our station managers Conor Day and Carolyn Huane have done better than we ever imagined while also generally being the two coolest people in the media space. To everyone who contributed to Radio Fodder in 2018—thank you for your humour, sex stories, fresh voices and unbeatable taste in music. Social media team Thank you to each and every one of you for every post, every like, retweet and Snap story. And Ilsa Harun and Jack Langan, you have spent so much time creating schedules and calendars, coordinating posts and fostering creativity. You made handing over the reigns to our social media a dream. Subeditors Thank you for checking us at every stop—keeping our facts correct, our bylines tight, our words in order and everything shiny. Without you working intimately, empathetically and carefully with writers, we wouldn’t have a magazine. Your job is in some ways the most thankless, almost entirely behind the scenes, and we can’t thank you enough. Video team Video makers—you helped us build relationships with so many different people at the Uni, and your campus coverage allowed for Farrago to become accessible in whole new ways. Ruby Perryman and Lily Miniken—you took on a job that hadn’t existed before, and made something wacky, exciting and weird. The Above Water team To everyone who trusted us with their creative babies, to Leah Jing McIntosh, Harry McLean and Jack Callil—and most of all Freya McGrath and Ashleigh Morris—we loved working with you and are so proud of what we created together. Above Water is something really special every year, but we’re so glad we got to create this shiny publication with you. Batman by-election team The Batman by-election team worked tireless hours to produce what ended up being 11 pieces of media (one of these was a two hour live election coverage special). We’re blown away by your multimedia skills and political reporting. Special thanks go to news website Polity for collaborating with us on this coverage, and providing your groovy graphics. NatCon team To Mary Ntalianis, Ed Pitt and Conor Day—we endured student politics and factional bullshit at the National Union of Students’ national conference for four whole days and somehow survived. We wouldn’t have been able to produce the amazing coverage we did without your stupol knowledge and constant endurance. UMSU election team Some members of the UMSU election team had never reported before, but you threw yourselves into the intense world of student politics without a second guess. You made Farrago’s coverage of the elections more in-depth and accessible than it has been in a long time. Special thanks to Alain Nguyen for all of his work on the presidential debate.

ART BY WEN QIU

COLLECTIVE Contributors Farrago always has, and always will, belong to its contributors. Your art, your thoughts, your stories, your discoveries—and the fact that you have made them into real things with your minds and hearts and fingers and pens and keyboards—and the fact that you’ve trusted us to put them into the world this year—are everything that makes this job worthwhile. Digitisation people Thank you to the volunteers who agreed to spend time down at the University Digitisation Centre, flicking through old Farragos— and a special thank you to Silvia Paparozzi from the University, who has been endlessly patient and supportive of this project. Nigel Quirk and the Printgraphics team A huge thank you to Nigel Quirk for putting up with us being a mess. You always delivered our magazine safely and helped us do fun things like put foil on the cover, make an edition with two covers and have a glossy photography section. And Nicholas Raftopoulos for standing in for an edition while Nigel was away—you were the happiest man we have ever met. Nineteam Ruby Perryman, Carolyn Huane, Katie Doherty and Steph Zhang—we can’t wait to see all the ways you show us up next year. We don’t want to leave our jobs, but we feel better knowing that we’re leaving you at the helm. Predecessors Thank you to all the editors of Farrago over the last three years. Everything we’ve been able to do is only because of the structures you developed and nurtured. And I need you *plinky plonky piano* and I miss you *plinky plonky piano*. Proofreaders Everyone who came along to our proofreading events—we appreciate ya! You kindly pointed out our mistakes, ate our terrible snacks and made the mag look a whole lot more professional. Readers Thank you for your kind comments, for engaging with what we do, and for staying with us on this journey. In the most genuine possible sense: cheers, big ears. The office bearers Our fellow OBs—thank you for giving us quotes for news articles and for sending in your reports (even though they were usually late). Special thanks to Callum Simpson and Lucy Turton from enviro, for working with us on consistently unsuccessful FOIs. Other student media Whether it’s Empire Times sending us five copies of every edition, Opus’ incredible Lou Regan being on our panel at NYWF or Woroni and everyone else fighting the federal government’s decision to lock us out of the budget lock-up, we’re so lucky to have been in such a cool, noisy community of student journos and editors across the country. Wordplay readers It takes courage to stand up in front of a group of people and speak your truth, and the fact that the audience is made up of your peers can make it harder rather than easier. Thank you for transporting us over and over. Abigail Fisher Abigail! You’re an icon and your godly spreadsheeting ways saved us. Thank you so much for your endless patience, compassion and understanding of what it means to publish student creative writing. We’re so honoured and lucky that you chose to work with us on this project. Nina Funnell Thank you for your ongoing fight to hold universities to account, and for helping us do the same. Many people doubt the significance of student publications, but you never did. Thank you for constantly picking up the phone and giving us guidance. We wouldn’t have come as far as we have without your help. Michael Bradley Michael from Marque Lawyers—you gave us free legal advice on two occasions out of the goodness of your own heart. We’re endlessly grateful for your dedication to helping out students in need. Isaac Thanks for renovating the Radio Fodder studio, tall red-haired man from AVMelbourne! Gosh, you did such a good job. One time Jesse went down to your cage in the basement and when he came back he was never the same. Linus Peng Coder of the new Radio Fodder website. Fashion icon. Cool person to have around. Your ones and zeroes are the best ones and zeroes. Web development is <element>-ary to you. Please remember us when you are extremely rich. Stephanie Zhang Thank you for being there with us at some of the tensest, most boring, most important meetings we’ve ever had, and for lighting up the groupchat with incredible cat stickers throughout. Now that you’ve seen first-hand how fucked-up UMSU can be, we hope it puts you in a position to be an incredible voice for change as Farrago editor next year.

ART BY WEN QIU

NEWS

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW Professor Duncan Maskell has now commenced his term as the University’s vice-chancellor, succeeding Glyn Davis who served in the role for nearly 14 years. Maskell was formerly the senior pro-vice-chancellor (planning and resources) at University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Davis will join Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy.

ENCOUNTERS WITH WRITING The Encounters With Writing minifest will take place on 18 October, showing the works of University creative writing students. The event is said to confront issues of “censorship, sexual violence, worldwide persecution of writers, the silencing of uncomfortable or minoritised voices, apocalyptic and self-congratulatory fictions.”

STUDENT ELECTION DRAMA The electoral tribunal at the Queensland University of Technology has ordered the guild student elections go to a re-vote, after the current administration failed to announce that the elections were occurring other than by putting up a single poster. The new election will occur on 31 October.

NEW CLUBS COMMITTEE Clubs committee, which holds its elections separately from the University of Melbourne Student Union elections, has now been elected. In order of election, the committee members are Harry Black, Ciara Griffiths, Ezra Bangun, Michael Hester, Simran Monga, Catriona Smith and Emma Johnson.

NEWS IN BRIEF

NEW EDUCATION MINISTER Dan Tehan has been appointed as the new federal education minister, succeeding Simon Birmingham. Birmingham, who oversaw the cuts to higher education implemented this year, was moved to the tourism, trade and investment portfolio.

NEW DEAN OF ARTS Professor Russell Goulbourne has been appointed as the University’s new dean of arts, commencing his term in January 2019. Goulbourne, who has previously served as the dean of arts at King’s College London, will replace Professor Denise Varney.

UNIMELB NO. 1 IN AUS The University of Melbourne has retained its ranking as the number one university in Australia in the Times Higher Education rankings. UniMelb has ranked 32nd in the world.

FROM UNIMELB TO GRIFFITH Carolyn Evans, the University’s deputy provost and deputy vicechancellor (graduate and international), will become Griffith University’s next vice-chancellor. She is the fifth of Glyn Davis’ deputies to become a university vicechancellor.

ART BY ELAINA WANG

ELECTION PROMISES Labor has pledged to give an extra $300 million in funding to universities if they’re elected in the next federal election, which will probably be called for next year. They have also pledged to remove the funding cap on course subsidies which the Liberal government introduced this year.

IDA Union House Theatre has produced Ida, a musical about the first female students at the University of Melbourne. The name Ida was also the name of the first women’s room at the University, and is now the name of the student bar.

FOI KNOCKBACK The University’s Freedom of Information (FOI) office has rejected Farrago and Lockout Lockheed’s FOI request into details surrounding the University’s partnership with weapons manufacturing companies Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems. The office cited that the documents could be classified as “exempt” under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 due to such factors as “commercial information of third parties” and “commercial information of the University”.

ENTERPRISE BARGAINING UPDATE The University has announced that the enterprise bargaining ballot will open on 17 October, giving University staff members the opportunity to vote on the new enterprise bargaining agreement. The ballot will close on 20 October.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER CALENDAR

CAMPUS

WEEK TWELVE

SWOTVAC

EXAMS

MONDAY 15 OCTOBER

MONDAY 22 OCTOBER

MONDAY 29 OCTOBER

MONDAY 5 NOVEMBER

TUESDAY 30 OCTOBER

TUESDAY 6 NOVEMBER

WEDNESDAY 31 OCT.

WEDNESDAY 7 NOV.

THURSDAY 1 NOVEMBER

THURSDAY 8 NOVEMBER

FRIDAY 2 NOVEMBER

FRIDAY 9 NOVEMBER

SWOTSNACKS in the women’s room

TUESDAY 16 OCTOBER

TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER

12pm: Women of Colour collective 12pm: enviro collective 1pm: trans collective 4:15: anxiety support group

SWOTSNACKS in the women’s room

WEDNESDAY 17 OCT.

WEDNESDAY 24 OCT.

12pm: women’s collective 1pm: lunch with the queer bunch 5pm: Media—Wordplay 7:30pm: Union House Theatre—Ida SWOTSNACKS in the women’s room

THURSDAY 18 OCTOBER

THURSDAY 25 OCTOBER

12pm: queer People of Colour collective 12pm: education collective 1pm: arts collective 1pm: disabilities collective 7:30pm: Union House Theatre—Ida

7pm: Union House Theatre— awards night

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER

4pm: Media—Farrago launch 7:30pm: Union House Theatre—Ida

SWOTSNACKS in the women’s room

FRIDAY 26 OCTOBER

SWOTSNACKS in the women’s room

ART BY ELAINA WANG

ART BY ILSA HARUN

NEWS

COPS ON CAMPUS

MEDHA VERNEKAR ON A STRANGE INCIDENT

CRESWICK CHANGES AMELIA COSTIGAN REPORTS T

he University of Melbourne has proposed drastic changes to the School of Forestry in Creswick, which would see a majority of classes relocated from the historic campus to Parkville. The move follows declining enrolments in recent years, and forestry courses being shut down nationwide. At present, the University of Melbourne remains the only institution to offer a specialised forestry education, based in Creswick. The University is proposing to replace the current Master of Forest Ecosystem Science, which is based primarily in Creswick, with the Master of Ecosystem Management and Conservation, which is intended to be taught in Parkville. Despite assurances from the University that the Creswick campus will continue to be supported, concerned staff, students, and members of the Creswick community have prepared a petition to save the campus. With the future of forestry at Creswick thrown into doubt, the petition has gained 803 signatures as of October 2018. The petition reflects the concerns of the community that the University is turning its back on rural education. “It is my belief that these changes also have the potential to eventually lead to its closure, and the end of tertiary education in Creswick,” said Leon Holt, forester and Creswick graduate. Holt is pioneering the effort to prevent the changes to the campus, leading the formal request to the University to reconsider the proposed changes. The welcome sign to the historic town of Creswick reads: “Home of Forestry”. Melbourne University’s campus, which opened in 1910, holds a central place in Creswick history and identity. Affectionately labelled the “school on the hill”, the rural campus offers students a unique opportunity to develop a connection to the local community and native wildlife—a connection that can’t be made at Parkville. “Courses like forestry should be taught at rural campuses like Creswick, where the forests actually are, not in the middle of Melbourne,” Holt said. The University has stated it expects enrolment in the degree to increase, by broadening the Masters and appealing to students primarily interested in environmental conservation. By basing the new course in Parkville, the University aims to attract students who would not be interested in studying at a rural campus. “Small communities depend on institutions like Melbourne Uni. Without their support young people in these areas will feel even less supported in navigating their academic pathways,” said Cecilia Stewart, a second year Arts student originally from nearby town, Ararat. The campus once boasted a population of around 120 staff and students, a number which now dwindled to just 30.

wo plainclothes police officers allegedly asked for UniMelb apparel to “blend in and look more like students” at Union House in late July, according to a staffer of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU). The staffer was closing the Information Centre when two men walked up asking for jumpers from lost-and-found. He then directed the men to the apparel stores on campus to purchase the items instead, as UMSU staffers are not allowed to give away merchandise items. When asked why they wanted UniMelb apparel, the men allegedly stated that they were police officers and showed him their badges. The UMSU staffer also recollects seeing their tactical vests beneath their clothes and guns on their hips. “They said that they’d be spending a few weeks around campus but didn’t specify their reasons why. The whole thing felt very bizarre, especially when they said they would just be ‘patrolling’ the campus and wanted to fit in more,” said the anonymous staffer. “The fact that they’re trying to disguise themselves as students doesn’t feel like an act conducive to any ‘public safety’ justification that they could offer as explanation.” The staffer confided in another anonymous UMSU staffer about the incident after it occurred. This was confirmed by messages exchanged between the two staffers, which were shown to Farrago. Victoria Police could not confirm whether plainclothes officers were on campus at that time stating “One can speculate as to why they may have taken clothing but in light of any further information I’m afraid trying to find out which police attended would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.” “There would be no need for plain-clothed members to collect clothing so they can wear it to blend in. That simply does not make sense.” Although the University has security officers patrolling the campus 24 hours a day, the men whom the staffer allegedly encountered had no UniMelb logo on their clothes which are usually worn by campus security officers. A University of Melbourne spokesperson stated that there were no police officers on campus that day and if there was police presence, the University would have been notified beforehand. The UMSU staffer remains concerned about the incident. “The University constantly prides itself on its multicultural and diverse identity, students should know when there is a police presence around them given the long history of police violence towards various minorities.”

ART BY LISA LINTON

CAMPUS

STUDENT ELECTION RESULTS ROUND-UP R

ANNETTE SYAHLANI AND ALAIN NGUYEN TELL YOU HOW THE ELECTION WENT

esults for the 2018 University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) election have now been finalised after a tense period of vote recounts and appeals. The results, most of which are similar to 2017 with Stand Up! sweeping the office bearer positions that they contested, are the closest in recent years with many being determined by fewer than 50 votes. Molly Willmott and Reece Moir, both Stand Up! candidates, won the election for president and general secretary. The party also secured the women’s office (Criselda (Aria) Sunga and Hannah Buchan) and both education offices, with the public office going to Cameron Doig and Charlotte Fouhy and the academic office going to Elizabeth Tembo and Ru Bee Chung. On the other hand, More! candidates Ashwin Chhaperia and Natasha Guglielmino gained the welfare office. Others secured by More! included creative arts (Ellie Hammill and Lucy Holz), activities (Liam O’Brien and Olivia Panjkov), queer (Andie Moore and Will Parker), environment (Will Ross), disabilities (Jocelyn Deane and Lucy Birch), clubs and societies (Christopher Melenhorst and Jordan Tochner) and People of Colour (Mark Yin and Farah Khairat). More! took all of the coordinator positions on the Victoria College of the Arts (VCA) campus—VCA campus coordinator (Hilary Ekins), VCA activities and events co-ordinator (Marcus Peters) and VCA campaigns coordinator (Lachlan Mclean). Meanwhile, candidates from The Biggest Blackest Ticket secured the positions of University Council student representative (Tyson Holloway Clarke) and the Indigenous office (Serena Rae Thompson and Alexandra Hohoi). The Burnley campus office was retained by independent James Barclay. Katherine Doherty, Stephanie Zhang, Carolyn Huane and Ruby Perryman of Independent Media were elected to the media office. Results from general committees and students’ council were mixed between Stand Up! and More! with the Melbourne Socialists and its affiliate tickets, International Students Welcome and Extend the Free Tram Zone inserting themselves in between. The 2018–19 students’ council is similar that of 2017–18. Stand Up! will return with seven seats whilst More! has gained one seat to a total of eight. Meanwhile, the Melbourne Socialists and its affiliates also gained three seats. Turnout was lower than last year with 3177 ballots casted—a 4.5 per cent turnout. What is interesting to note is that the turnout at the Faculty of Business and Economics building seemed to be marginally higher than 2017. However,

despite this increase, the area saw little campaigning from both sides, probably due to the nearby construction bonanza. Most of the election was decided at the gauntlets that were Union House and the Baillieu Library. The journey through Professor’s Walk was particularly intense with campaigners on both sides flocking to students—this contributed to around 2,624 votes or around 83 per cent of casted ballots. Marred by late drama and delays, this election has been one of the most prolonged in recent times with counts spanning for over a week due to appeals and numerous recounts. On the last day of campaigning, More! was banned from campaigning for a total of one and a half hours, due to a member campaigning inside Union House and a defamatory private message written by an individual with friends in that party. Even with the ban, the margin on Friday between the two sides seemed to only marginally benefit Stand Up! by 68 votes at both Union House and the Baillieu Library. However, with an election so marginally thin, the ban would have had ramifications for the vote count, prolonging it over the weekend to another week. Meanwhile in the vote room, two contests were on a knife-edge with the general secretary and welfare positions having margins of fewer than 10 votes. At one point it was one vote apart for the welfare office between More!’s Chhaperia and Guglielmino and Stand Up’s Dominic Roque Ilagan and Noni Bridger. After multiple recounts, the margin extended to over 30 votes for More!. General secretary was not clear cut with the margin staying between three and four votes despite multiple recounts. A challenge to the tribunal was rejected, making Stand Up’s Moir the incoming general secretary for 2019. The electoral tribunal was held on the Friday after election week, as More!’s women’s and general secretary candidates lodged an appeal regarding the results of their positions in the elections. This appeal was rejected by the tribunal and Stand Up! still secured both positions. You can find more details surrounding this incident on the next page. As the votes were going through their rounds of recounts, students seemed to move on. But for the 4.5 per cent who voted, the results appeared to mean little to the student body, reflecting the level of disengagement of previous years and uncertainty over what mandate the elected office bearers have within the campus community.

ART BY QUN ZHANG

CAMPUS

TRIBUNAL THROWS OUT MORE!’S APPEAL O

MEDHA VERNEKAR ON THE DRAMAS WHICH FOLLOWED STUDENT ELECTION WEEK

n 14 September, the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) electoral tribunal rejected More!’s appeal for a re-election for the general secretariat and women’s office. The appeal made allegations against the returning officers over defective conduct of the election. The appeal was initiated by More!’s general secretary candidate, Elinor Mills and the women’s officer candidates, Dilpreet Kaur Taggar and Roset-Monet Wilson Scott. Mills lost the tightly contested race by four votes to Stand Up!’s Reece Moir, while Kaur and Scott were defeated by Stand Up!’s Criselda (Aria) Sunga and Hannah Buchan by 45 votes. In both their submissions to the tribunal, the candidates detailed their claims of unfair punishments towards More!, specifically on the last day of the elections, where More! had a full ticket campaigning ban for an hour due to a member flyering in Union House. On the same day, More! faced an additional half hour full ticket ban following the revelation that a defamatory message about the Melbourne Socialists and Stand Up! written by an individual with friends in More! was due to “political motivations”. The message had previously led to a ticket organiser and four randomly selected campaigners being banned for two hours, before the disclosure of the individual’s intent in sending those messages. Although the candidates admitted that the contents of the message were defamatory and unacceptable, they claim that More! did not have any significant advantage from the message as very few people were aware of its content. “It seems impossible that any individual social media messaging by a student could possibly have produced enough votes for us to be equal to the significant, lengthy and widespread campaign penalties that were applied because of it,” said Kaur and Scott. In addition to the bans on Friday, a More! campaigner was given a four hour ban for speaking to friends in an allegedly private conversation about More! within a polling area. “They were already voting for More! prior to the conversation and they were asking how to vote for the elections, the More! campaigner simply indicated their friends to the polling booths,” said Mills during the proceedings. Furthermore, More! alleged that these bans were disproportionate to the campaigning bans received by the Stand Up! ticket. More! also brought up a campaigning incident that they believe didn’t receive a harsh enough penalty given the nature

of the offence: a Stand Up! campaigner was caught handing out the ticket’s flyers underneath a Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) flyer, while saying “free pizza and AGM” to people around the area. More! argued that this was misleading and an incentive to vote. In response, Stand Up! presidential candidate Molly Willmott was given a two-hour campaigning ban. Both submissions from More! also raised concerns over the count room left unlocked given the tight races, especially between Mills and Moir for the general secretary position. In response to the bans due to campaigning in polling places, Stand Up! believed that More!’s penalty was justified as there were two instances of campaigning inside the Union House and the returning officers did warn of harsher penalties the second time around. Luntz admitted that if he had known that the campaigner was saying “free pizza” along with handing out the Stand Up! flyers, he would have enforced stricter penalties on the campaigner. In a statement to the tribunal written and signed by returning officer Jaimie Adam—represented by Luntz at the hearing—Adam justified More!’s full ticket ban due to two violations of campaigning within exclusion zones. In regards to the ban given to a More! candidate on Monday, Luntz alleged that: “The candidate’s direction to vote for More! was clearly audible to anyone in the polling area. It was not a private nor casual conversation. He was banned for four hours.” This contradicts More!’s statements alleging it was simply a private conversation with friends. Luntz also justified the ban given to More! for the defamatory message as it was difficult to determine how widely it was circulated. He also stated that the contents of the message were wildly inaccurate and had to be taken very seriously as it contained “events that remain an ongoing and sensitive HR issue for UMSU”. When the individual behind the message was questioned by the returning officers as to why this message was posted, she allegedly told them, “I want More! to win.” In regards to the count room being unlocked, Luntz stated, “Although the situation is concerning, we are quite sure of there not being any evidence of tampering”. The returning officers’ statement stressed that, “Irrespective of whether they affected the outcome, penalties are there for a reason and may, in close contests, make the difference. They would not be effective otherwise.” The tribunal threw out all elements of More!’s appeal.

ART BY QUN ZHANG

NEWS

RENEWED CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNANCE FOR UMSU IN 2019 NURUL JUHRIA BINTE KAMAL REPORTS

he University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) is currently reviewing plans to overhaul its governance and constitution. The plans are projected to be finalised by the end of the year, with the overhaul set for semester one, 2019. UMSU’s constitution has not been properly reviewed or updated since its inception in 2006. In the years since, the union has expanded its scope to include new departments and positions such as the People of Colour and disabilities departments. The current project, Renew Our UMSU, aims to update the rules and structure of UMSU’s constitution to better represent the more diverse and growing student population of today. It is anticipated that the review will have a strong emphasis on the representation of international students and graduate students as these two groups have faced the biggest changes since the constitution was first written. The number of international and graduate students has significantly increased since 2006. Currently graduate students are also represented by the Graduate Students Association which is a separate entity to UMSU, while international students are represented by UMSU International which operates differently from UMSU departments. At the same time, graduate and international student representatives also sit on UMSU’s students’ council. On top of this, it is probable that students’ council will face reform. “The Renew Our UMSU project to review our governance

was not a response to anything negative in UMSU’s functions, rather it was a good opportunity this year to look at ways to improve the things that we do—student representation, support, events and campaigns,” said UMSU President Desiree Cai. UMSU contracted Randall Pearce, managing director of the business consulting firm THINK: Insight & Advice, to scope the current state of the union, discover issues and develop a new governance model and constitution. UMSU will hold a forum on 18 October, where it is anticipated that draft governance models will be presented and discussed. Students will be able to voice their opinions about the potential models at this forum. The adoption of the new governance model and constitution will only be implemented after it has been approved both by UMSU’s students’ council and the broader student body at a special general meeting. Students’ council is expected to approve the model before the end of 2018. UMSU will call the special general meeting sometime next year for students to convene, look through and approve the planned changes. “Ultimately, the changes should help UMSU function as efficiently as possible, and improve how students are represented by their union,” said Cai. To stay up to date with the project, you can visit: https:// umsu.unimelb.edu.au/about/umsu/renew-our-umsu/

It’s election season in Victoria. Join Farrago on our Facebook page for live commentary and results of the Victorian state election on 24 November, beginning at 6pm. Stay up to date with state politics.

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ART BY CAROLINE VOELKER

NEWS

SHOCKING: LECTURE ATTENDANCE LOW A

MAGGY LIU USES STATISTICS TO PROVE WHAT WE ALL KNEW ALL ALONG

Lecture Attendance Report conducted in 2017 has revealed that a large proportion of undergraduate Arts (69 per cent) and Science (63 per cent) students are not attending their lectures. These results were attached in the appendix of the Academic Programs Committee’s meeting minutes of May 2018. Other popular notions, such as the idea that lecture recordings encourage students to skip them altogether, were proven unconvincing. Though this may already be anecdotal knowledge, the percentage of students accessing lectures either in person or online only amounts to 45 per cent of enrolled students for Arts subjects and 60 per cent of enrolled students for Science subjects. In short, students aren’t skipping lectures because they’re recorded—they’re simply not attending at all. Aspects students found more important included the quality of subjects and the range of other commitments they are juggling in their decision-making on whether to attend a lecture or not. Georgina Frazer, who was a third-year Bachelor of Science student in 2017, admits to skipping lectures during her degree simply because she didn’t feel connected to the other students in attendance, due to large class sizes, and a desire to pursue her other passions such as horse riding during the day time. Now that she is specialising in a Master of Veterinary Studies where she’s surrounded by likeminded peers, she makes more of an effort to show up to her classes. “I go to classes now because I have tons of friends in them. Vet is a small cohort where you actually know people whereas back in Science I knew, like, two people so I didn’t have the social motivation to go.” The Lecture Attendance Report was conducted across 79 undergraduate Bachelor of Arts and Science subjects across all year levels over the course of a semester in 2017. In order to determine why certain classes have lower attendance than others, headcounts were taken in lectures across various weeks of the semester to determine how many people were physically in attendance. Lecture Capture statistics were also extracted to determine the view and download count for lectures. Finally, focus group

discussions were also conducted with 61 students so they could give more insight on why students were attending or missing certain lectures. Within the focus group discussions, students across both Arts and Science reflected that the most important factors influencing whether or not they attended a lecture were the content of the lecture, its delivery and its relevance to them. On the flip side, reasons why they did not attend lectures included the quality of the lecture, as well as external factors like clashing work commitments or extended travel time. This has not prevented some lecturers who may dislike the recording system from acting in ways students perceive as “gaming the system” through tactics such as not using the microphone or giving extra exam tips only after the recording ends. Some lecture-styled classes, such as some within the Melbourne Law School (MLS), are not recorded at all. Currently, there is a petition by the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) for the MLS to record these classes in order to improve “accessibility, equity and learning resources” for students. When requested for comment, a spokesperson from the University stated: “After extensive consultation with staff and students, Melbourne Law School came to the conclusion against making recordings available generally. This view was reached in the interests of providing students with the best quality legal education and the best teaching experience overall. Students with special consideration reasons are able to access recordings in compulsory subjects.” Though the scope of the Lecture Attendance Report does not include the Melbourne Law School, it does reveal that a relationship between the availability of lecture recordings and the quality of education provided has not been substantiated. The report suggests that individual lecturers and faculties should look towards addressing core issues in order to improve lecture attendance. This may include creating engaging and relevant teaching material, and helping students work around external barriers to attendance in order to encourage them to get the most out of their degree.

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WHOSE CREDIT IS IT ANYWAY?

ALAIN NGUYEN GUIDES YOU THROUGH CROSS-INSTITUTIONAL STUDY

ave you ever wondered what it’s like to transfer into a course at UniMelb? Are you not getting much fun out of accounting or Habermas? Well, you’re in luck, because you can transfer either as a University of Melbourne student or from a rival university. Farrago did some research into the paperwork and experiences from students of what it means to have your own “credits” recognised at the University beyond the conventional ways of passing a subject here. Cross-institutional study is the opportunity to study at another Australian institution, transfer to another course within UniMelb or apply for overseas exchange. All transfers must go through go through the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre—whether or not you’re currently studying at UniMelb. Similar to when you first applied, you preference your most desired institution from one to eight. Applications usually open in August if you want to be in the semester one intake for the following year. You also have the potential to get what’s called “advanced standing”, which is essentially transferring certain subject units to your new degree. Depending on the process, you can get up to a year waived before you begin. “[The process] is pretty easy, you just have to go through the advanced standing application online for UniMelb. They ask you what subjects you did at the other uni and to attach the subject info and stuff,” said Joseph Paglia, a recent transferee from RMIT University. According to the University’s credit policy, the maximum points a student can get from studying at another institution is 50 per cent of the total points of the course, in this case 150 credits or 12 subjects. However, the amount a student can get transferred to advanced standing is done by on a case by case basis and within the scope of “equivalent” subjects. As such, there are two types of advanced standing: general where you can shorten your degree, and exemption where you get a waiver on a prerequisite but may have to still do a certain number of credits. However, there are potentially issues with the process in terms of what the University deems are equivalent credits. At other universities in Australia, a subject that is a third-year level unit could be considered first- or second-year here. “I came from another university which had more subjects surrounding the units I took as part of a major. I don’t even think the University has a specialisation surrounding it,” said

T, a transferee who is now doing a Bachelor of Arts and on exchange. The scope of the handbook also can be confusing sometimes, especially when it comes to applying for exchange which is a different process all in itself. “Stop 1 didn’t tell me that the University had an exemption from [certain credit requirements] in the [European Union] and I was desperately trying to get the credits I needed so I could come here. I ended up emailing my destination University who were like ‘What? You don’t need 120 credits if you’re from [Melbourne].’” Much of the process is finding equivalent subjects then writing if you want it credited as a breadth, core or elective; there is ambiguity on what constitutes, “equivalent”. For example, a third year education subject at McGill University may be seen as a level one breadth here at UniMelb and it depends on the country and institution—even academic dates. Another example is, in the United States, particularly with the University of California system, the academic year is divided into ‘quarters’. Much of the legwork in getting your credits recognised comes from you searching the fine print and emailing or contacting different avenues. Hayley Baker is a swimmer for the Australian National team and has cross-credited much of her degree at Open Universities Australia and the Australian National University. “I’m still a UniMelb Student. I have to get the subjects i choose approved by the relevant course coordinator then apply though Stop 1. Because I’m an athlete, I have access to flexible study assistance which helps things get processed smoothly,” said Baker. What if you’re not an athlete and in Melbourne for most of the year but want to experience a different institution? According to the University’s website, you must lodge an application four weeks before the next session, get approval, lodge evidence and submit documents online. However, there are limits on how many subjects you can cross-credit. “All students are only allowed 100 cross-institutional credit points so that’s how many I get too,” said Baker, who’s decided to use her last 100 UniMelb credit points cross credited in Canberra, where she trains. It seems all of the processes surrounding a student’s credits, whether they are external or not, would have to require a degree of approval. However, the existence of which is often overlooked by the general student population and as a result, much of the work comes from a little bit of digging.

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CAMPUS

WOMEN AND THE CULTURE OF PHILOSOPHY COREY MCCABE ON THE UNDERREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY

report commissioned in 2008 by the Committee of Senior Academics Addressing the Status of Women in the Philosophy Profession examines an often neglected problem: the underrepresentation of women in philosophy. The number of women in bachelor’s degrees majoring in philosophy in 2006 was 55 per cent. The percentage of these students who actually complete their degree is 40 per cent. By the time one gets to doctorate level, the figure is down to 38. At the University of Melbourne, currently only 26 per cent of postgraduate philosophy students are women. Essentially, while many women enrol in philosophy, they drop out at high rates, and far more often than their male counterparts. Figuring out why is difficult; people hold widely varying perspectives on the causes and effects of the disparity. A third-year undergraduate student Farrago spoke with acknowledged that there is often a gender gap in classes, but doubted that the imbalance is all that harmful. “If it was the case that there were less women, I never felt like I was in a minority in a class ... Never have I felt not listened to.” She said that while the imbalance is quite prominent, it is unclear what is causing it. Dana Goswick, a lecturer in the philosophy department, expressed similar views. “A gender imbalance exists. However, I am unsure what the causes of the gender imbalance are. I’m a female staff member teaching readings by female authors and I still have a large imbalance in my subjects, particularly at honours level. I believe that, if we want to understand specifically why female students at the University of Melbourne take such subjects less often than male students do, we need more empirical data specific to students at the University of Melbourne.” Goswick added that while a gender imbalance existed in the leadership structure of the University, she was unsure if students were aware of it. “Obviously, if students aren’t aware of such hierarchical imbalances, it’s not influencing their subject and major choices,” she said. This notion seems to be confirmed by the fact that while the representation of women among academic staff at universities appears to be slowly improving, there has not been a corresponding increase in the number of women staying in philosophy. Explaining why so many women drop out from philosophy degrees is complex. While many structural problems exist that

may contribute to this exodus, similar problems previously existed in other areas of study that have become much more balanced in representation. Why is philosophy so resistant to change? An explanation often provided is that the method of philosophy often does not support the inclusion of minorities. It was in response to this problem that the Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) chapter was started at the University this year, a group aiming to examine and address the low participation of minorities in philosophy. Farrago spoke with Antonia Smyth, a postgraduate student and secretary treasurer of the new chapter of MAP, about the issue. Many different explanations were given, but the overriding concern was participation. Philosophy classrooms are focused on the discussion of ideas. Yet, even when women are present in the class, they often feel hesitant to voice their opinion. They may remain silent through the entire semester, not because they have nothing to say, but because they do not feel confident speaking. Smyth blamed much of this reticence on how philosophy classes operate. While the ideal is a fruitful discussion of ideas, often it can break down into confrontational debate that is “more aggressive than collaborative”. This environment can be particularly difficult for women, who are often socialised to be more reserved, and to avoid speaking over others. “It can require a lot of confidence to speak up in class and women might find it hard. A lot of women think they aren’t cut out for philosophy because they don’t feel sure of themselves when making their point,” she said. But such rules of engagement are not just bad for women, they are bad pedagogy. Not giving people time to formulate their response, not trying to accurately characterise an opponent’s views and not having everyone contribute equally is all to the detriment of intellectual discovery. For thousands of years, reasoned debate has functioned as a great tool for advancing human knowledge and understanding. For much of that time, however, it was thought to be solely the preserve of educated men. The idea that men are the only group capable of intellectual discourse has unduly restricted much of philosophy to a single parochial perspective. It is a view that is now rightly seen as outmoded and erroneous. Perhaps it is time to recognise that to fully accommodate marginalised perspectives we must change how philosophy itself operates.

ART BY KIRA MARTIN

ART BY LINDA DATE

CAMPUS

STUDENT POVERTY LEVELS HIGH LUCY TURTON ON THE STRUGGLES STUDENTS FACE

ecent data from Universities Australia, the peak body for Australian tertiary institutions, revealed that one in seven students is regularly unable to afford food and other essentials, with Indigenous students and regional students experiencing the greatest hardship. An Indigenous student reported that financial strain while completing their studies was so extreme that they “don’t eat much anymore”. Released in August, the data is the result of the 2017 Student Finances Survey, a survey undertaken about every five years by Universities Australia. With the last two national surveys of student financial circumstances commissioned in 2012 and 2006, this year’s data incontrovertibly shows student income remaining relatively stagnant over the last 11 years. One full-time undergraduate student quoted in the report said they had thought of deferring multiple times “because it was financially becoming too hard.” Services are just not accessible and fitting work and university together, whilst maintaining even above average mental health is near impossible.” At least one third of students surveyed reported expenses that exceeded their income. Trends across the last two surveys demonstrate growing stratification in students’ income and expenses, with the divide between students from wealthier backgrounds and those from low socio-economic or otherwise disadvantaged backgrounds continuing to widen. The growing cost of juggling study with basic living allowances is becoming increasingly onerous for many students, and according to the University of Melbourne Student Union’s (UMSU) welfare department, this pressure forces students “across the board” to make significant sacrifices. “The first thing to go is the mental and physical wellbeing of students,” welfare officers Cecilia Widjojo and Michael Aguilera said. Geng Huang, the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) health and welfare officer agreed. “Students have to sacrifice their studies whenever they are forced to increase work hours just to get by, and with the removal of penalty rates this has only become more difficult.”

UMSU welfare funds a regular food bank service to provide students in need with grocery packs to cook around three meals, however only between 500 and 700 of these are collected each semester across the Burnley, Parkville, and Southbank campuses. Many of the students who collect the packs are regular users of the program, and given the high rates of student need identified in the Universities Australia survey, there may be many more disadvantaged students who fall through the cracks. “There is a level of awkwardness or shame associated with asking for this kind of support,” said Widjojo and Aguilera, who also cited a dearth of publicity around services as a major obstacle preventing students from accessing support services, whether they are directly through the University or via UMSU. Students Farrago spoke to provided mixed responses about the helpfulness of UMSU-run financial assistance services, with one undergraduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, saying they “got a cold response from UMSU that implied I needed to be ‘known’ to them as a poor person”. “I felt I had to ‘prove’ I was deserving … I never came back. It felt like I wasn’t being trusted when I said I needed help,” the student said. The student also said it was implied that official financial records were necessary in order for them to use the food bank. Another student credited the food bank services for helping to “keep [them] sane” and re-stock their pantry “when [they] had no money at all”. The same student cited mental health, work commitments, and Centrelink failures as compounding the stress of their study load. The University financial aid services proved “amazing”, the student said. “[They] listened to my problems and gave me a same-dayloan that let me pay off my money owed [to Centrelink] and have enough left over to feed myself without stress.” Unlike UMSU or the University’s financial aid division, the GSA stated that they “cannot provide direct financial support for students who are struggling”, but that its weekly

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CAMPUS

barbeques and social events are designed to help ease stress for postgraduate students. International students make up 45 per cent of the graduate student cohort. With particularly limited work rights, this means international students find balancing study with work especially difficult, Huang said. Widjojo and Aguilera suggested that postgraduate students have more advantages than undergraduates in balancing work and study, often having more “experience in the workplace and the rental market”. “For graduate students, it seems that the vulnerability of casual retail, hospitality, and fast food work is not the everyday reality,” they said. Unlike undergraduate students, Widjojo and Aguilera said, postgraduates “are far more concerned with the next step into specialised careers”. In the Universities Australia survey, close to two thirds of undergraduate students reported annual incomes below the $20,000 poverty line, compared with around half of postgraduate students. However, postgraduate students are not necessarily more financially secure than their undergraduate counterparts. This year’s survey results highlight a significant decrease in international postgraduate students’ median income, from $33,700 in 2012 to $21,900 in 2017. Perceptions of postgraduate students overall being able to find more secure or better-paid work than undergraduates are contradicted by the 2017 survey data, with median incomes for full-time postgraduate students only slightly higher than full-time undergraduates. Elaborating on postgraduate student experiences, Huang said,“The average grad student is between 25 and 40 years of age. Many of them have had children, or taken on other family responsibilities.” Postgraduate students also have greater career expectations and financial pressures than undergraduate students, often owing to having to accommodate study amidst substantial work and unpaid placement hours, the GSA said. Many survey respondents cited necessary unpaid work as part of their courses as an additional financial burden, with one student commenting that they “can’t work—any spare hour is spent at unpaid internship placements which are necessary for [their] degree”.

“Budgeting at times can become crippling to a person’s wellbeing—by avoiding social activities, training opportunities and simple luxuries like more than toast for dinner,” the respondent said. Rather than course costs alone preventing students from studying, the growing cost of living, as well as an increasing need to undertake unpaid work whilst studying force students to suffer through their degrees. UMSU welfare said that “there needs to be a further investment in student services” from both the University and the federal government, calling on the University to allocate more funding to both student services and its Counselling and Psychological Services, as well as fulfilling its duty to “provide a level of workplace literacy to students”. Widjojo and Aguilera said that the government’s continued campaign of cuts to higher education are intrinsically linked to government indifference to the workplace exploitation disproportionately faced by young people and students. “For those that are already financially vulnerable, these cuts present further obstacles to gaining education and industry experience.” The GSA health and welfare office also cited government cuts as particular stressors on postgraduate study, emphasising that many postgraduate courses are ineligible for Commonwealth assistance, and that postgraduate courses are usually significantly more expensive than undergraduate degrees. Recent federal government policies have “put higher education out of reach for students who aren’t already welloff, which is only going to perpetuate and entrench inequality even further,” Huang said. If the last decade of student finance surveys confirms anything, it’s that the gap between financially disadvantaged and financially stable students—whatever their course level or load—is continuing to grow much faster than anticipated. While tertiary education is becoming increasingly essential, access to support services and government assistance appears to be less and less able to meet the needs of students.

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ACCEPTING THE UNCERTAIN

EMMA WHITE ON THE DIFFICULTIES OF CHOOSING A PHD TOPIC

y PhD confidence crisis crept up on me so slowly that I barely noticed it. There was no tectonic shift—I love you PhD, I love you not—nor was there any acrimonious fracture of my supervisory relationships or mounting distain for my topic. But when the words of Dr Seuss’s Oh The Places You’ll Go! started resonating with me and perfectly described my PhD trajectory, I knew it was time to take a breath. One of the advantages of research is the ability to choose your own direction, a freedom which is simultaneously thrilling and enormously frightening. For me, a person who has difficulty deciding from menus with photographs, the potential for choice was overwhelming. “Should I turn left or right... or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?” There is a good reason that boots fall lighter upon welltrodden paths. I started a PhD to research the effectiveness of groundwater management during drought. My research statistically examines how well groundwater management plans achieve environmental protection and supply security under various climate and implementation scenarios. But it is a big topic, and early on, my mind leapt from scheme to scheme like a mouse in a bucket, and I flailed to net ideas that fled before me. Then my direction crystallised, I published a bit, presented a bit, and thought I was on cruise control for completion. And then came the final phase. The path bifurcated. My supervisors urged me to take one path, yet I yearned for the other—uncertainty analysis. Championing my cause, I won my first technical argument with one of my supervisors, which in itself, felt like an epic PhD milestone. Yet, I was on a downward arc; pin-wheeling the length of an incline, unsure if I was going the right direction but powerless to stop. Then suddenly, uncertainty was everywhere, and it rose around me like swamp gas. Uncertainty is intrinsic to a PhD, where the purpose is to do something novel, something clever, something that has not been done before. The thing about doing stuff that hasn’t been done before is, that sometimes, it doesn’t work. “Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t.”

Doubt insidiously seeped into my consciousness. Am I following a white rabbit down a narrow hole, or walking down a not-so-good street? “What if this fails?” whispered a sly little voice in my head. And then anxiety flourished, and I convinced myself that I had flung years into the abyss for naught. What I didn’t realise was that anxiety is so common among graduate students it is almost handed out with a student card. A PhD can be scary—not like clowns in the forest kind of scary—but more of a deep, pervasive, unease that leaves nerves jangling and sharp. An apprehension that things will not work out, concerns about appeasing supervisors, maintaining good standing, publishing and presenting, not to mention getting an academic job afterwards—which these days, seems about as likely as randomly generating your own phone number. Maintaining productivity under that level of uncertainty is not easy. This tornado of self-doubt marooned me in a slump. And: “Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.” The trajectory of a PhD is so topographically varied that at times the trail resembles a coiled sea monster. I’ve worked 20hour days and 20-minute days, and sometimes I need to step back and reset my perspective. And that is ok. For a long time, I lashed myself with recriminations at any perceived failure, as the earnest bespectacled student I so desperately strived to be. Chatting with other PhD students who understood the challenges of graduate studies infinitely lifted my spirit, be it commiserating with friends over espresso martinis, or appreciating the faceless creators of “PhD memes” that reminded me there were others out there who have endured the process; a secret community in the ether, every meme a little ping of solidarity. Now that my compass is fixed upon uncertainty, my research worries have retreated to the horizon, smothered under the volumes of knowledge I need to absorb. Who would have thought there is so much to know about not knowing. While uncertainty is unsettling, it is the fundamental nucleus of a PhD, the spark and the question. It is the “I wonder”. Now it is up to me to implement it. In the words of Dr Seuss, “Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way!”

ART BY RENEE DE VLUGT

FROM A PASSION, TO A CLUB

EZRA BANGUN TELLS YOU HOW YOU CAN START YOUR OWN CLUB

had always known coming to uni that I would love to join a club. However, the big question was “Which club to join?” I wanted to do everything, but it certainly didn’t help that there are over 200 clubs. Even so, I couldn’t find one that I was totally enthusiastic about. For those who aren’t satisfied with the current selection, don’t worry. Not only can you join a club, you can also create a new club! Creating a new club might sound like a scary and bizarre idea. There are so many things that could go wrong. What if you mess up important documents? What if there aren’t enough people interested in joining your club? What if the clubs and societies (C&S) office bearers and staff are scary? (Turns out that they are actually lovely—go to them if you have any questions!) As someone that just went through this process last semester, I had these concerns too. While the process was not a piece of cake, everything turned out great. If you are not convinced yet, here are some steps that you’ll need to follow to start a club! (You can also find these on the UMSU website, but this article is more fun.) The first step is creating the idea for the club. You need to have at least four aims that are achievable, clear and not too similar to existing clubs. You should also consider your target audience and what events your club will run. If you are genuinely passionate about your ideas, this is a very easy step. The next step, which, as an introvert, I found the hardest, is to get expressions of interest from at least 50 students. There are three ways to do this. Firstly, you can advertise your clubs by campaigning outside Union House or before lectures. Although you’ll get the keenest people to join your club, this method is easier said than done as it takes a lot of time and resources distributing flyers. Secondly, you can go to an established club’s event whose members may be interested in joining your club (ask their committee first whether you can advertise there). However, your expressions of interest can’t overlap more than 40 per cent with members of another club. Finally, you can ask your friends to support you in getting those 50 expressions of interests. However, this might be hard as they may not be interested enough to attend a general meeting or become a committee member, which are also essential elements of running a club.

The next step is writing your constitution. No sweat though as the C&S committee have a standard constitution that you can use! Finally, you need to hold your inaugural general meeting (IGM). Before the day, there are several things you need to prepare, like the agenda (there’s a standard one available), room bookings and catering and then provide this information to the C&S department. You might also want to ask people beforehand if they are interested in becoming a committee member to save time during the IGM, although any member that comes to an IGM has the right to nominate themselves. On the day, make sure that you have at least 20 people attend your IGM. Advertise and message everyone you know, otherwise you will have to defer your IGM. A member of the C&S department will come and help you run the IGM as the returning officer and chairperson and you will also need to appoint a minute-taker. After the IGM, you just need to submit all the relevant documents like the IGM minutes and membership list. However, your work is not done yet. New clubs are vulnerable to being disaffiliated, so it’s essential to learn all the rules and regulations you’ll need to follow to keep your club alive. Read through the exec wiki, attend executive trainings and ask plenty of questions. Don’t forget to keep promoting your club—clubs are nothing without their members. Spread the words to your friends, run events, create banners and network with other people by attending events run by the C&S department. Finally, work together, bond and meet with your committee members regularly so that you can grow the club together. This article might seem intimidating but my advice is to just try! (Just be prepared for extra work during the semester.) The time to create a new club might only start next year, but you can start preparing right now. Talk to clubs people, find someone to be your co-founder and start envisioning your events. Everyone’s passions and interests should be represented in UMSU! Personally, I’ve found that managing clubs is tiring but going to events and meeting new friends with similar passions to mine has made my uni life way better.

ART BY RENEE DE VLUGT

CAMPUS

OFFICE BEARER REPORTS PRESIDENT | DESIREE CAI What a year it has been! In 2018 we’ve opened the Ida Bar, commenced a renewal of UMSU governance, the student precinct project continues to chugg along. We’ve managed to run a bunch of awesome campaigns and events. Some highlights include UMSU support of the NTEU university staff strike, and the massive rally against sexual violence. I hope you’ve found support, fun events, and ultimately a community in your union this year. In the lead up to the end of semester, and as we enter the new year keep getting involved! Come grab some free food and know that UMSU is always here for you. Also welcome to your next president: Molly Willmott, who I have no doubt will run a strong, staunch union in 2019.

GENERAL SECRETARY | DANIEL BERATIS No OB report submitted.

ACTIVITIES | JORDAN TOCHNER AND ALEX FIELDEN We’re done!!!! We just completed our last (best) event and now we are FINISHED (except BBQ’s, they’ll keep chugging along). We’re really proud of everything we’ve accomplished this year from creating a new, successful sem 1 party (big woo to St Pat’s) to using the BBQ’s more than ever as a platform for clubs and other departments to promote their stuff. It’s been an interesting year for us but we’re so happy with everything we’ve achieved and we hope you’ve had as much fun as we have. We’d like to congratulate the provisionally elected OB’s for next year, Liv and Liam, we’re really excited to see what you’re going to do and we wish you all the best!! Love you all, Tochuer and Fieldeni OUT.

BURNLEY | JAMES BARCLAY

Once again anther year comes to a close and I can’t help but wonder where it went. No doubt a lot has happened over the past ten months and whilst it’s clear that there has been a lot of change and growth it’s as if we started just yesterday. I believe there is a lot of merit to the idea that one percieves time in correlation their age. A year felt like a lifetime as a child because mathematically it almost was. Therefore, as we age the years will get faster and faster, we’ll get busier and busier trying to jam in all the things we wanted to do before the ground swallows us back up. But sometimes it’s nice to stop, breathe and take in the beauty of everything around you, remembering that we are infinitely lucky to even exist. I’d recommend going to Wilson’s Prom for that, it’s where we at Burnley will breath come the end of Semester Madness.

CLUBS AND SOCIETIES | MATTHEW SIMKISS AND NELLIE SEALE It’s been a wonderful year for the clubs department and the clubs we oversee. There’s been over 1300 grants and countless club events held throughout the year. The department is growing rapidly with approximately 50 new clubs to be affiliated this year and no sign of slowing. With massive changes to the clubs exec wiki throughout the year, adjustments to regulations and policy, changes to processes involving alcohol and improvements on internal processing, we genuinely believe we have left the department in a better state than we found it. With our term almost over it’s time to look to the future and see what next year’s OBs will bring. Love, your 2018 clubs OBs, signing off for the last time.

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OFFICE BEARER REPORTS CREATIVE ARTS | FREYA MCGRATH AND ASHLEIGH MORRIS

Two Desperate Arts Facilitators Seeking Employment. Freya & Ashleigh are highly experienced and enthusiastic art facilitators seeking employment in the arts industry. In 2018 they ran hugely successful arts events including; Arty party, Tricks of the Trade workshops, Pot Luck Open Mic Nights, Visual Art Classes, a bevvy of UMSU Inter-departmental collaborations, Talking Out of Your Arts Q&As. They gave out up to $10,000 to support student artists and ran Tastings 18 – which supported the production of eleven new student performance works and a smorgasboard of artwork in the Tastings Takeover. Freya & Ashleigh have loved being Creative Arts Officers but now have to step aside and let two younger and more sprightly creatives take on the best job ever (they will be spectacular).

DISABILITIES | JACINTA DOWE AND HIEN NGUYEN Come along to our final events of the year in celebration of Invisible Illness Week (which is this week, 15th – 19th October 2018)! We are having an informal info session plus social gathering where people with invisible illnesses can share and discuss their experiences on 12 – 2 pm Tuesday 16th October (one of the rooms on Level 2, Union House), and a workshop in on 1 – 2 pm Friday 19th October (Training Room 1, Level 3, Union House). Catering provided for the Tuesday event, so send over your dietary requirements to disabilities@union.unimelb.edu.au.

EDUCATION (ACADEMIC) | ALICE SMITH AND TOBY SILCOCK Hi again it’s us, sadly for the last time. During SWOTVAC make sure you come to our Study with Ed sessions on Thursday at 12 in Graham Cornish to take a break from quietly sobbing in the library to grab some pizza and chill out. If you want to get more involved with the department next year make sure to apply for the Student Representative Network on our website. The SRN is a group of students that care about their education and want a say in the decision-making process, and have the opportunity to sit as voting student representatives on university committees. Either way make sure you get involved in the department next year, and it has been amazing to have the opportunity to run this department this year and thank you to everyone who helped make this year fantastic!

EDUCATION (PUBLIC) | CONOR CLEMENTS Things are (sadly) wrapping up, but we’re still chipping away at a couple of things before the new UMSU OBs get a shot next year. We’re running a petition aimed at getting the Faculty of Business and Economics to chill out with making exams hurdle requirements for passing subjects. You can probably see how that’d cause undue stress on students, so sign here: bit.ly/bcomhurdle. We’re also preparing for a student and uni staff contingent down to the ACTU’s Australia Needs a Pay Rise rally. If you’re concerned about the fact that getting a secure, decently-paid job these days is actually pretty fucking difficult, then come along. The rally starts at Trades Hall on 23/10 at 10:30. That’s all from me! Thanks for a great year and good luck to next year’s OBs. I’d highly encourage anyone reading this to get more involved in UMSU next year—it’s changed my life and challenged me in ways I never thought possible.

ENVIRONMENT | CALLUM SIMPSON AND LUCY TURTON

What a year it’s been! The Enviro Collective is still going strong thanks to hard work of many volunteers and campaigners. We had lots of fun events, such as the spooky Environmental Disaster Haunted House and the delicious Play With Your Food nights. We also learnt a lot at many different workshops and skill shares including how to dumpster dive and to make reusable food wraps. There were many opportunities to learn and discuss big ideas about how to change the world at Radical Education Week, Enviro Week, and the Students of Sustainability conference. It’s been a successful year for Enviro’s campaigns. The University is on the verge of achieving net zero carbon emissions and is assessing the sustainability of its investments. We had soem big actions for the Lockout Lockheed campaign and are learning more about the Uni’s relationships with war profiteers.

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OFFICE BEARER REPORTS INDIGENOUS | ALEXANDRA HOHOI

No OB report submitted

PEOPLE OF COLOUR | REEM FAIQ AND HIRUNI WALIMUNIGE

To our dear PoC department family, It’s been a privilege and an honour to represent you as your OBs this year! We’re so grateful for your involvement with the department and its events and know we couldn’t have done it without your wonderful presence, kind feedback and patience, either as attendees, facilitators, or contributors to our initiatives! We’ve reached many milestones this year including the introduction of new weekly events like reading groups and film screenings, as well as continuing initiatives like tutor training and Myriad. We love, appreciate, and thank you for helping us grow and develop through your support. We wish you all the best and hope that you continue to engage with the department! We look forward to seeing the new heights it’ll reach.

QUEER | MILLY REEVES AND ELINOR MILLS

The queer department smashed out the biggest gayest night of what has been a very big very gay year with the sold-out Queer Ball bringing you hundreds of gays drinking gin & tonics, getting messy on the dance floor, and covering themselves and all their friends with copious quantities of glitter. We’re stupendously proud. For the rest of the year we’re focusing on the small things: continuing to run our regular collectives, maintain the Queer Space, and grow the Queer Political Action Collective. A massive thanks to everyone who has attended our events and engaged with the department all year: it truly has been a 20-gay-teen to remember.

VCA | LILY EKINS

No OB report submitted

WELFARE | MICHAEL AGUILERA AND CECILIA WIDJOJO

Oh my.. What a year! Cecilia and Michael have felt so incredibly honoured to be your Welfare Officers this year, and to give back to the very special community at Melbourne University. Running programs such as our Community Involvement Program (CIP) and regular events as well as running campaigns to make sure that the university remains focused on student welfare. Stress Less Week was last week. We hope that our fantastic schedule of relaxing and wellbeing events has given students some well-deserved de-stressing. But, no rest for the wicked: For the rest of the semester we have STOTVAC Stalls running near the library’s, to keep you full of caffeine and buzzing through that final stretch of the semester. There is also the exciting ‘Safer Partying’ initiative right around the corner.

WOMEN’S | MOLLY WILLMOTT AND KAREENA DHALIWAL

Celebrate the end of semester with us and a whole lotta cake at Smash the Pastry-archy! Our annual magazine, Judy’s Punch, is finally here! Peak angry feminist content! Get yourself a copy from the stands around campus. We’re doing SWOTSNACKS again – study snacks in the Women’s Room to sustain you during SWOTVAC. Remember the Women’s Room is open whenever Union House is, so you can still come in for naps, study, crying, period/safe sex gear etc. after week 12. Pls stay involved next year and meet your new Women’s Officers Aria and Hannah! The safety on campus campaign will still be going strong and we need YOU to be part of it. We’ve had a blast running this department. Thanks for an amazing year <3

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annual general meeting BY KLAUS HIMES

seas of suits in first year tutes: become creaking cogs in capitalist creations, counsel onlookers on crypto quirks, lose sight in fogs of corporate concoctions and pay little attention to art – unless fleetingly, taking part in lining walls for the annual general meeting, lined walls in this financial façade distract clients from this first year’s bombarding, of facts, figures window-dressed for triggers at the annual general meeting. science commands the table head; labs, hefty tabs, barely fed, led by NASDAQ, ecology, biology, astrology – no, neurology scoffs at the financiers’ attempts to understand the complexity of thought at hand; a thought that commerce can’t stand, at the annual general meeting. while words soar across finished jarrah eyes scan the painterly personality cover: what is beauty such as this doing in this void, lacking admiration for the art student’s creation adorning walls while they sit an ornament of openness a decoration of dedication to change, at the annual general meeting? these stereotypes are just a start of unequal university universals: neither accurate nor aiding, drawing faculties apart. But for the future, we must work together resulting in an outcome greater strength to strength so we can weather the annual general meeting.

ART BY SANCHARI MONDAL

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BARD TIMES: PART EIGHT

JAMES GORDON PRESENTS: “WHAT IS THE END OF STUDY? LET ME KNOW.” It was 1578. William Shakespeare was 14 years old when he left school. Then he disappeared. Between 1578 and 1582, there is no documented evidence linking the bard to any job or location. Nobody knows what Shakespeare did in those years. Until now.

he wormhole doth fizzle and crackle by some books in the library. Professor Volkas, the head of quantum physics at the University, was wiring some pegs and jotting down some notes on a clipboard. He typed some mathematical and science-y words into his laptop and switched on a device; a bolt of lightning cracked in the air. The purple disk, swirling like water, a sea in the storm, fizzled and sucked. “I’ve done it,” he cackled. He’d always wanted to cackle like that. Shakespeare was throwing his head on his laptop, trying to distinguish between Chicago and MLA style referencing. His head, upon hitting his keys, had writ some arbitrary letters on the screen. He’d finally had enough of this foreign world and he wanted to flee. He pondered, perhaps he could avoid sitting his exams if the mind that doth fill him pulled his body back to his homeland. After all, he was a genius, supposedly; surely he of all people could fix that pestilent wormhole, the cause of all his woes. He wouldn’t take any plays with him, just his mind and the knowledge that he’d one day be great. Chloe ambled into the library at this point, a weariness upon her eyes. “How’s your study going?” She slurred, drunk on her lack of sleep. “A plague is upon my heart am I to lend this study any more time.” “Mate, try to chill a little. Space yourself out. Just because you’re studying doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself of all fun.” “Yes, but the addition of pleasure to my study will deprive me of slumber, and how a nap can end the shocks that my flesh is air to.” “Of course.” “How I should stab your eyes for being so myopic.” “Yeah, don’t worry I get what you mean,” her words almost running into one another. “You know, I’m contemplating leaving this place. Its studying rules and manipulative tutors, its frightening woes and confusing customs.” “Oh mate, don’t talk like that. Don’t leave me, you can’t go.” “If I mend that disk yclept wormhole, then I’ll leave, I’ll leave this pestilent place.” “Okay, well,” Chloe’s eyes fell a bit, “I guess you’re homesick. Do you think you’d bring any of your plays?” “I shall not riddle time any more, I shall write my plays with my own hand and without the aid of completeness. I want to

achieve greatness, not have it thrust at me. I am more than a medium to transfer cleverness from one era to another.” “I guess that’s true.” That night, Shakespeare got an email from Professor Volkas requesting a meeting for the following day. Our bard dutifully accepted and anticipated what such a meeting could mean. Perhaps he had been summoned to assist in the writing of a contemporary play, or maybe they would invite him to attend a great feast or help develop a new flavour of pie. The possibilities, really, were endless. The following day, our bard perambulated to Professor Volkas’ office. He sat himself comfortably in a wheelie chair, then quietly enjoyed how he could twirl from side to side. Volkas was idle: a bespectacled man at his desk, his glasses sliding down his nose. “So I’ve fixed the wormhole,” Professor Volkas chimed. Our bard perked up. “What good news you bring!” “Well, it was quite a lot of work, so this is going to cost you $3000.” “What doth thou mean? Such money I do not possess.” “Well I’d also accept your flesh.” Our bard stared dumbfounded, until Volkas spilt out some laughter. “I’m totally messing with you, Shakespeare. It’s completely free.” “Oh, for this relief much thanks.” “Now, because you were missing for four years, we can only send you back to 1582 but because there’s a time travel function here, you can basically go back whenever you like. So what do you want to do? Do you want to go back now or spend a little more time here?” Shakespeare went to speak, to say of his desire to go home at once. He thought of his wicked tutor Dan, those evil ticket inspectors, those bothersome essays. Such a cold and uncaring world. But then he paused. He stopped and he thought. How he wished he could leave, pursued by no care. But he did care. He now cared for this world. He thought of Chloe, his friendship, the laughter and joy. He thought of Professor David and the comedy show he performed. Such warmth and love this world did possess. ‘Twas a mingled yarn, with good and ill together. “So what do you want to do?” Volkas repeated. Shakespeare looked up. He had made his decision.

ART BY BETHANY CHERRY

THE GRUB

UNIMELB TO INTRODUCE ANTI-CHEATING SOFTWARE THAT TRACKS ALL THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS OF STUDENTS

n a shocking announcement, the University of Melbourne has revealed the implementation of an anti-cheating software capable of recording every single thought experienced by any given student. Following an outpouring of objections from various student groups, a University spokesperson gave the following statement: “In this digital age, the methods of cheating available to students have grown immeasurably. The ability to collect comprehensive information about every aspect of our students’ minds is simply the next step in keeping up our efforts to combat these new techniques. “The relevant data is collected through special headsets which can pick up an individual’s perceptions, thoughts, and emotions—repressed or otherwise. Students will be able to remove the headset any time they participate in a nonassessment activity. The headset also does not affect your

ability to see, eat or listen to lo-fi hip-hop beats to study/relax to. Incredible care has been taken. “For example, let’s say we take a look at a certain student writing an essay. The data show us that they actually were feeling positive thoughts for 67 per cent of the assessment period, and a mere seven per cent of their time and brainpower was spent furiously trying to bend sources to support their hypothesis. Then we can say, OK, maybe this student did not follow the expected procedure in completing that assessment.” “How do you feel about concerns regarding the misuse of personal data?” asked a journalist in attendance. “Don’t worry, I’m not sure there’s a highly lucrative market for that kind of thing,” the University spokesperson responded. If we really wanted more money, we’d just raise rates for international students anyway.” —Joel Lee

OPINION: UNIMELB’S SWITCH TO SINGLE-PLY SHOWS CAPITALISM HAS FAILED A t its best, market capitalism is a positive force driving change, innovation, growth and prosperity. At its worst, it’s an excuse to reduce one of the most intimate human experiences (taking a shit) to a cost-saving calculus. While Duncan Maskell sits atop his royal throne enjoying the trademark softness of Quilton’s superior three-ply in his ivory tower (probably), students are subjected to the inhumanity of single-ply, single-sheet sandpaper. The University’s decision to abandon the comfort of traditional toilet tissue represents the perils of unchecked market capitalism. The desire to cut corners and save costs has replaced the imperative to provide a humane product. The toilet should provide students with a moment of solace: an opportunity to absorb the content of the morning’s lecture or to finish readings ahead of afternoon tutorials. Instead, going to the toilet at the University of Melbourne has become a frightful experience. The single-ply policy introduced by the University discriminates particularly against scrunchers. Scrunching represents a means of creating a fluffy tissue-y buffer between your fingers and your bum. Alas, to achieve this aegis with single-sheet requires concerted and

ongoing pulling in the toilet, an arduous task. The energy expanded pulling here could be much better spent pulling other things, such as pulling your notebook out of your bag to take notes during class. A traditional roll of toilet paper costs around 50 cents. With around 250 sheets of three-ply, that’s 0.2 cents per sheet. Whereas the University’s new single-sandpapery-shit-sheet costs $4 for a packet containing 4,000 individual sheets, or 0.1 cents a sheet. Factoring the University’s consumption of toilet paper over a standard semester, this switch represents a meagre saving of only a few hundred bucks. Is the comfort and satisfaction of tens of thousands of students worth a few hundred bucks? Apparently not. As a society, we must stand against the creeping shadow of unabated capitalism and the austerity it prescribes lest it engulf our lives in complete darkness, devoid of even the most fundamental human pleasures. My heartfelt condolences extend to commencing first years at the University of Melbourne from 2019 (especially the scrunchers amongst you). —David Vadori

ART BY CATHY CHEN

ART BY RAYMOND WU

TRAVEL

THE PROBLEM WITH TRAVEL LUCY TURTON LOOKS AT WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE TO GO TO OTHER PLACES

ater this year I’m travelling to South-East Asia for three months, and I feel gut-wrenchingly guilty about it. It’s not only because of the carbon emissions involved in flying, nor the chequered and problematic history of white people journeying through Asia over the centuries. Since long before Elizabeth Gilbert ate, prayed, and loved around the globe, people from one place have travelled to another place, returning with souvenirs, stories and “new” ideas. It’s tempting to view this dissemination as a holy form of multiculturalism that celebrates social, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic difference, but I think that this belies a much shadier truth: self-interest in all its forms is the bedrock of travel. Of course, I’m not referring to those refugees like my grandparents who came to this Aboriginal land fleeing tyranny and torture, nor the hundreds of asylum seekers imprisoned on Nauru and Manus Island for the supposed crime of escaping persecution. The kind of travel I’m talking about is the de riguer travel of the uber-privileged and the rather-privileged. One end of that spectrum houses the Elizabeth Gilberts and six-figuresalaried escapists, but at the other end sit people like me who hold down a job or two and have grown up more or less comfortably with a good education and an inner-suburban upbringing. The sheltered nature of such a privileged, Anglo-European childhood and teenagedom is perhaps part of the reason many of my peers and friends are already so well-travelled. The sense of independence, freedom, and that most colonialist of concepts—adventure—is what lies at the core of the decisions of many high school and university graduates to embark on gap years in Europe, Thailand, South America, and wherever else is popular or exciting. The idea of backpacking around the world on a shoestring budget evokes a sense of unknown adventure and possibility, something that transports one beyond the mundane restrictions and shortcomings of everyday life at home. Is travel merely about the novelty of experiencing something different, then? This romantic conceptualisation of travel as a means to mature, grow, and learn from the experience of the new and the different is not without merit. Travel offers oneself experiences, often intangible moments that are unable to be held or touched or copied by others, whatever the trends in travel style or destination may be. Swimming with sharks or climbing the Eiffel Tower might be an individual and unique experience for each person, no matter how clichéd and predictable such experiences have now become. Communicable only through photographs and occasionally thrilling stories, travel experiences are a kind of personal imprinting, helping eke out our identities. Travel stories are about a something happening to us, and an us formed out of that something. Perhaps this is especially true here in so-called Australia, where our geographical isolation from the rest of the world has made travel even more of a desirable, “exotic” rite of passage.

But this exoticisation of the “foreign” is exactly the problem with tourism. There is no denying that even the purest of motivations for travel—personal growth or even learning about other cultures—require one to take something for oneself from another land and its people. The elitist dichotomy between those swarms of moneybelt and sunglass-clad sightseers deemed “tourists” and the ostensibly enlightened adventurers known as “travellers” is only part of the problem. The numerous travel writers who make such distinctions are snobby at best and profoundly racist and sexist at worst (it is unsurprising that white men dripping with distaste are the primary purveyors of this brand of patronising paternalism). The difference between these supposed two groups is merely in the attitudes and behaviours inherent in the travelling styles of each. Whether it be the conquering of the landscape by climbing its mountains, the spiritual and mental challenge of living in an ashram for a month, or the hedonism of indulging in previously unknown foods, every form of travel involves an attempt to better or enjoy oneself. The only real distinctions between the self-described “traveller” and the oft-derided “tourist” are how they go about fulfilling this self-interest and, when you peel back the layers of fabricated identities, how upfront they are about why they travel. If there is a truth in the adage that the advertising industry sells you ideals, rather than products, then the travel industry is surely the epitome of this trading in ideals. We aim to travel in a way that reflects who we want to be, and many appear to choose their destinations and methods of travel to forge a sense of identity. Are we to blame for wanting to break out from the wagelabour prison of ordinary life at home, though? Whether international travel is a habit of entitlement, or helps to achieve greater universal enlightenment and cross-cultural understanding, it’s hard to deny that the luxury of tourism is now seen by many as a regular necessity of escapism. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that in 2016 just shy of 10 million Australians travelled internationally for short-term holidays. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation reports “virtually uninterrupted growth” in the tourism industry, with seven consecutive years of increasing tourism across the world. Some cities have become so overrun by tourists (with tourists far outnumbering residents in some places) that frustrated locals have been driven to anti-tourism property damage, assault and intimidation tactics. In 2017, a group of Barcelona locals destroyed a tour bus, slashing the tyres and spray-painting the slogan “tourism kills neighbourhoods”. So, is it okay to be a tourist? You can try, probably in vain, to decolonise your tourism practices, actually make the effort to learn about the culture and the language, and contribute your tourist dollar to sustaining local communities. But even then, there is an overwhelming sense that all this learning is really just attempting to mitigate the harmful colonialist flavour that travel still leaves in my mouth.

ART BY ILSA HARUN

ART BY MIRANDA PARK

CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF RACISM

THE RISE OF THE “PRETTY BOY” LINDSAY WONG ON HOW K-POP HAS INFLUENCED CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF ASIAN MASCULINITY

s someone who has been a fan of K-pop for almost eight years, I have watched the musical genre transform from a regional breakthrough into a global phenomenon. Growing up in Tokyo, I was heavily influenced by my Japanese friends to listen to “old-school” groups like Girls Generation, SHINee, Super Junior and Kara. Now I listen to BTS, EXO, Seventeen and GOT7; my love for K-pop remains. However, recently I have noticed that more people, especially in the West, have been paying attention to K-pop as it has gained popularity. At the Wanna One concert in Melbourne on 17 August, I was surprised to see groups of Caucasian girls decked out in merchandise and lining up in the VIP standing section. Alongside the rise of K-pop’s popularity in the West, the dominant image of Asian men among Caucasian girls has shifted to being more desirable and ideal. This is a contrast to the ways Asian men have been perceived in the past. The media has played a significant role in determining how the West perceives Asian men. Most Westerners’ only exposure to Asian people in the media has been mainly via television and movies, as there hasn’t been much of an Asian presence in the Western popular music industry. Asian men are often stereotyped as nerdy and cringeworthy. For example, popular TV shows like 2 Broke Girls portray Asian men as short and desexualised, with heavy accents. Since education is often regarded highly in Asian culture, young Asians are represented as uncool as they spend most of their time studying. Caucasian men are always seen as being superior to Asian men, in terms of looks and being “cool”. Traditionally, Western media has been resistant to K-pop. After Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ went viral in 2012, many Westerners had a generalised image of K-pop based on this one song. For example, one episode of YouTubers React by the Fine Bros was dedicated to reacting to EXO’s music video for ‘Call Me Baby’. When teenagers heard that it was a K-pop video, they immediately related it to Psy and ‘Gangnam Style’.

Western media has started to depict Asian men more favourably as K-pop has become more recognised amongst the people. You no longer have to be a K-pop fan to know BTS. The boy group, formed by Bighit Entertainment, made their debut with ‘No More Dream’ in 2013. They are by far the most popular boy group from this industry around the world, and they have been leading the K-pop breakthrough in the West. BTS started to gain popularity in the US and other parts of the West towards the end of 2016. Around this time, the group also released their hit song ‘Blood, Sweat & Tears’, the title track of their fourth album Wings, which charted at number 26 on the Billboard 200. This paved the way for their nomination for the Top Social Artist award at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards. Because of their huge international fanbase, BTS beat out Justin Bieber to win this award. Western media outlets started to pick up on this extraordinary achievement, which introduced BTS and other K-pop artists and groups to the general public around the world. K-pop male idols are hot. Girls want to date them, and boys want to be like them, even though they don’t fit the conventional Western ideals of masculinity, like being buff and hairy. The majority of K-pop male idols have features that are traditionally seen as feminine. For example, they seem to have softer facial features and lean physiques. Fans tend to perceive male idols as being pure and innocent, which makes them trustworthy and “boyfriend material”. One trait that is common among idols is the use of makeup. BB Cream, brow pencils, lipstick and guyliner are normally used on idols to enhance their features, especially when they are performing on stage. EXO’s main vocalist Baekhyun pulls off the “smoky eye” look so well that there are makeup tutorials for it on YouTube. Many K-pop male idols play with androgynous features of fashion. G-Dragon, the leader of first-generation boy group BigBang who is known as “the king of K-pop” has graced the cover of Vogue China wearing glittery jewelry, thick

ART BY HANNA LIU

CULTURE

black eyeliner and a purplish matte lipstick. Even though he is notable for often embracing a more androgynous appearance, he has pioneered fashion trends that have taken over South Korea. Similarly, Ren from Nu’est and Jeonghan from Seventeen have rocked long, flowing hair in the past. Despite people often mistaking them for girls, fans still go crazy over them. The “pretty boy” look of many idols has stolen the hearts of many fans, and perceptions of Asian men have been changing because of this new outlook. K-pop idols have broken down gender stereotypes and stereotypes of masculinity, which has influenced Western mindsets. Different people have their own views of masculinity, but global ideals of masculinity have been largely influenced by the West, partially due to the distribution of Hollywood movies, which have a global audience. A-list actors like Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling are conventionally seen as being heartthrobs and the “ideal type” due to their masculine features. Traditionally, masculine guys are seen as muscular, but the image of the K-pop male idol is challenging this view. Usually, it is Western ideals that impose themselves on global views, but in this scenario, it is the other way around. Furthermore, the West has conventionally linked makeup to girls exclusively; there is a stigma around guys wearing makeup. Even though the Western public is becoming more open to the idea of guys wearing makeup, they are still labeled “gay”, “sissy”, and other slurs. However, K-pop idols do not receive this kind of commentary. It would be more shocking if an idol went on stage barefaced without a hint of makeup. Many fans even try to imitate their favorite male idols in terms of makeup. K-pop male idol groups also often cross-dress for pure entertainment purposes. Instead of sneering at such acts, fans laugh about it and encourage it. The immense popularity of BTS in the West has led to people discovering other popular boy groups like EXO, Seventeen, GOT7, Wanna One, iKON, Winner, Stray Kids, etc.

Because of BTS, fans are branching out to become fans of other boy groups. Many of the members of these boy groups possess similar characteristics like being lean and having a “pure” look, and they hail not only from South Korea but also from other countries in Asia like China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand. This has given people a generalised view of Asian men and masculinity as people have been more exposed to K-pop. In an article for The Conversation called ‘Un-designing masculinities: K-pop and the new global man?’ Associate Professor of Design Anthropology Elizabeth Dori Tunstall argues that a new definition of masculinity is being formed in the West. This new perspective significantly contrasts with what people have thought of Asian men in the past. The definition of Asian men as being nerdy, cringeworthy and desexualised is less and less common among the masses. As an Asian person myself, I have been proud to see the beginning of this shifting mindset. I did not think that the West would come to embrace K-pop as much as they do today due to how they have stereotyped Asian men in the past. There is even news of American director Scooter Braun bringing K-pop to Hollywood. Fox 2000 studios will be producing a new K-popthemed film in the coming future. Seeing K-pop slowly take over the entertainment industry is an incredible feat for Asia, and its consequences are hugely beneficial to society. Thanks to the influence of K-pop and changing perceptions, Asian guys are getting more attention in the mass media, on social media platforms, and even in university love letters. Witnessing K-pop continuing to have a larger influence around the world has been an amazing experience—and there are no signs of this stopping any time soon.

ART BY HANNA LIU

TRENT VU PRESENTS...

FODDER FEATURE: SPILLING THE TEA “F

odder Feature” is a column I’ve been writing since the start of this year to showcase some of the people involved with Radio Fodder. I’ve interviewed a bunch of hosts about the joys of having a radio show, the challenges involved and—perhaps most importantly—their #1 queens of music. But no interview I’ve done thus far has been more memorable than the one I wrote for edition one. Given about two or three days to write up my first column, I didn’t have time to catch up with someone I knew from Radio Fodder to conduct an interview. So, in a panic, I decided the best course of action would be to interview myself about my own show, Snappy Hour. While I thought it was hilarious, I definitely got some criticism from people who thought I should’ve shared the spotlight with my then co-host Monique Langford, who also felt a little gypped (sorry, Monique!). Now, in a full-circle kind of moment, I’ve decided to take this column as another opportunity to plug my own show— this time, my new show Spilling the Tea! I was thinking about trolling my new co-host Zoe Stephens by doing a whole interview with her, only to submit another Q&A sesh with myself. But because I’m nice and like to think I’ve grown as a person, I’m leaving it to Zoe to plug our show. Who is your #1 queen of music? Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj are an unstoppable duo right now. I’m obsessed. For those who (heaven forbid) haven’t listened to Spilling the Tea, could you describe the premise of your show? Our show is best described as Wendy Williams, meets Grindr and hookup horror stories, meets an occasional social rant by me. We love to spill the tea, which—for those unfamiliar with the term—means “tell the truth”. Basically it’s us living our most authentic lives. And your cohost Trent Vu is somewhat of a Radio Fodder legend. What’s it like co-hosting a show with him? Sometimes it can be a very demanding task. It’s hard to live in the shadows of such an iconic skinny legend, but it is incredibly fun! I really love working with Trent Vu. We have a lot of laughs.

What’s been a highlight of your time on Radio Fodder? Definitely the Bachelorette episode, where Trent found two guys to join us on the show to compete for me. It was horrifying, embarrassing, but hilariously good content. I was blindfolded for about 15 minutes of the episode just chatting to two strangers while Trent was hosting. It was an experience and a half. Unfortunately though, it didn’t record, so that content can only live on in our memory. RIP. What’s been something challenging? I think most of our show has been breezy except for our inability to stop talking and actually play music. As well as the fact that numerous episodes have been lost, because we’re just two ditzy gals from the big city who don’t know how to record anything. What’s your experience with Radio Fodder been like? My experience has been really great actually. But that goes hand-in-hand with the fact that I’m working alongside a seasoned veteran of Radio Fodder. I don’t think it would have been as easy-breezy-beautiful-covergirl if I had been working with someone equally new to the art form. It has been a tonne of fun—especially because our show is actual trash and serves no real purpose. So a lot of the time it was just us talking absolute shit. Finally, do you have any advice for people thinking about doing a show next year? Definitely give it a go and try to commit to the twelve weeks! But just know you have enormous Louboutins to fill! You can listen to Spilling the Tea’s podcasts on MixCloud. And there you have it! My very last “Fodder Feature”. I feel so honoured to have been given the opportunity to show some love to a platform that’s meant a lot to me for the past three years, as well as to celebrate the people who put so much time and effort into creating awesome content on Radio Fodder. Although my time with the station is up, I can’t wait to listen to all the new shows next year, and to look back at my old podcasts to relive all the amazing memories.

ART BY AMANI NASARUDIN

ART BY JOO LIEW

DANCE

SILENT BODIES

LUKE MACARONAS TALKS WITH DAVID MCALLISTER ABOUT THE GAY HISTORIES IN BALLET

he floors of the rehearsal studios of the Australian Ballet company have just been renovated. Dancers bustle through the labyrinth of frosted glass, slipping in and out of doorways that conceal change rooms, physios, studios and gyms. Although austere teachers and hardwood floors have given way to plasma screens and angular furniture, this place is still brimming with self-importance. Students from the Australian Ballet School queue at a canteen. Leotards and tights in bizarre purples and pinks cling to their bodies asymmetrically, exacerbating the hollow spaces in their shoulders and legs where muscle is yet to show. The studio into which I am led is huge, repeating the creams and greys of the hallways in the tarquette, and curtains that reach into the vaulted ceiling. A set of bifold doors have been swept back so that the room is doubled. The mirrors at each end of the parallel studios now reflect a green infinity into each other. At the front of the room the company’s artistic director, David McAllister, sits in silence, legs crossed, with a single finger wrapped up the side of his cheek. Every time we meet, McAllister wears black. A counter to the porcelain hues that surround him, he is a clash of sporty nylon and woolen turtlenecks. The ballet world has always maintained an aura of detachment, built around the myth of the athlete-artist, and McAllister is no exception. He only speaks twice during the whole rehearsal. Once to offer a technical note to a dancer and a second time to explain to me a joke among the dancers—something about the difference between effacé and croisé, and keeping your legs closed. I used to learn ballet as a teenager in a dusty hall behind a church. Now, in this studio, I can feel my chest tighten with a familiar discomfort. I straighten my posture and unfold my hands. The relationship between dance and my identity is something I have never fully understood, and it has always frustrated me that I unknowingly fell into a gay cliché. This is what has brought me here—I want to know why so many gay people are drawn to ballet. I am uncertain how this question will be received, and worried that McAllister will misunderstand me or simply disagree. Joining Australian Ballet in 1983, and taking on the role of artistic director in 2001, he has only occasionally talked publicly about his sexuality. We are left alone in another white room, and I launch into my preamble—a primer to brace McAllister for how gay I want to get. “Ballet does have a kind of unique relationship to queer—” “It’s sort of weird,” he says, before I can finish, “because I guess for my whole upbringing as a kid I was always called a poof, even before I knew what a poof was … For a long part of my career at the ballet company I sort of fought against that stereotype because I thought, ‘I don’t want to be one of those ballet-dancer poofters.’ And eventually I went, ‘Well, actually, you can’t fight nature. That’s what you are, so get over it.’” McAllister is overflowing with stories and memories— gossip about gays in the company. I begin to understand his place within a history shaped around the traces of subversive sexuality, which stretches across names like Nijinsky, Nureyev and Murphy. We talk about his coming out late in life, and even reach back to the company’s reaction to the AIDS epidemic. “I actually think if I hadn’t have been a ballet dancer and so disciplined I could have way gone down that path, ‘cause

I was right in the middle of it. I turned 18 in 1981 which was just when it was all rolling out, so if I hadn’t have been... There was a lot of fear and a lot of people trying to hide the fact they were HIV positive. I mean, it really did happen.” The cliché of the “ballet poofter” who grew up in a turgid town is one into which McAllister fits neatly—and one he seems uninterested by. Part of the company since the 80s, McAllister’s story is nothing special, because to him the mythology of the gay dancer is commonplace. “I’m post-gay,” he jokes, referencing a phrase used by his partner, Wesley Enoch. “It’s not an issue. It’s just as normal as being straight.” It is easy for this palatable progressivism to overtake our conversation—before long, McAllister is explaining the Australian Ballet’s social outreach programs, and that the AusBallet Instagram account has the largest following of any ballet company in the world. He begins to regurgitate phrases I have seen in other articles and interviews; he plays the role of brand ambassador with ease. I ask again: “I studied ballet as a child and it was exactly the same for me. Because I was straight—or I felt straight when I started doing ballet—so did the ballet make me gay?” This makes him laugh. “I think there’s an aesthetic to ballet that’s quite appealing—I mean it was to me—because of that thing of dressing up. It’s a non-verbal artform, so you don’t have to say anything. You can completely live out this fantasy without exposing anything of yourself.” “And that was never dislocating?” I ask. “That to me is the paradox of the male body in ballet—this total fantasy.” “I think that’s what drew me to performing. That opportunity to live a whole lot of different lives that you may not choose to live in your own life, but you can. You can be anything you want to be. You can be aggressive and nasty, you can be romantic and poetic, you can fall in love with women, you can fall in love with men, you can fall in love with nobody, you can be a fantasy character that has actually no sexual orientation—it is the ultimate opportunity.” The body of a ballet dancer is a site of contradiction. Trained in rigid and meticulous detail to unlock an unbounded expressiveness, the lightest movements spring from the deepest strength. Identity becomes flexible, but often within a paradigm of strength, beauty and straightness. McAllister’s reflections on his own performing career are filled with similar knots and contradictions. “I used to love being in love on stage. Being Romeo in Romeo and Juliet was one of my great joys, because it was living out that fantasy of a straight couple.” We laugh, but the image feels hollow. “When you are in a ballet environment you can have it all—you can be going home to your boyfriend but dancing with your girlfriend on stage.” Inhabiting straight fantasies through dance seems counterproductive. It is a paradox of simultaneous disguise and legibility, cloaking effeminacy in heterosexuality. It is only recently that McAllister returned to perform, for the first time since becoming artistic director, in the Australian Ballet’s production of The Merry Widow in Melbourne. On a stage saturated by diamond-studded dresses and scarlet curtains, McAllister appears as Njegus, the bumbling secretary to the ambassador. Pantomimic and slapstick, the fantasy is in full swing—and McAllister knows how to play the game. The audience drinks deeply from his perfectly timed winks and silly walks, revelling in the comedy.

ART BY AYONTI MAHREEN HUQ

DANCE

In these playful moments, McAllister’s fantasy makes sense—not as escape, but as a rejection of finitude, and a celebration of the multiplicity of identity. The music, the costumes, the whole ballet seems to fuse through his body, as he toys with the illusion of character and sexuality that rests there. I am struck again by his place within a gay consciousness in dance. From teenage boys finding their own bodies in ballet schools, to the paradoxical masculinity of male dancers throughout history. The queerness in ballet is softly spoken: it is a moving in and out of acceptable space. It is imperfect and compromising, but it is a kind of release.

“I don’t necessarily think that ballet is the best tool to be making broad social statements about ourselves and who we are,” McAllister seems to concede. “Quite honestly, we started off as an entertainment and I think that’s what it is.” “I think often when people feel alien to themselves and their environment, they try and find the answers through art or their particular form, whatever it may be,” he explains. “I think anyone that exhibits any signs of being different is just victim material. And I guess that I found my way of not being the victim was being able to find that release through dancing.”

ART BY AYONTI MAHREEN HUQ

FAITH

ART BY NELLIE SEALE

FAITH

KEEP FAITH A MYSTERY

ANDIE MOORE ON WHY GOD SHOULDN’T MAKE SENSE

“L

et us proclaim the mystery of faith,” the minister reads. “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” In the initial edition of the Roman Missal, the reading would continue: “Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our death. Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.” This acclamation has become foundational in church liturgy. Used before communion, the priest invites the congregation to join them, uttering a miraculous fact—that the son of God, who is at once God and human, has died, risen to new life, to later come again. The eternal being who keeps this world existing passes away in one form, to allow us to live eternally. The death of God in human form has prolonged our life in a heavenly form. The mystery of faith affirms a total contradiction sitting at the cornerstone of faith. The act of Christ’s death gives us a hope and a reason to believe, if we ever needed one. But the act of Christ’s death requires no justification from the followers—congregants simply repeat the fact that it happens. The mystery of faith is simply a repetition and acknowledgement of what has happened. There is no discussion of the logical proof God intervened in the world the way he did. Importantly, such a proof misses the point of faith. The believing embrace contradiction as something miraculous, something to be proclaimed, something that demonstrates God’s greatness. The ability to defy limits and reason is part of the mystery of faith. This approach to religion contrasts with the way the public has recently tended to engage with the topic. The constant, atheistic attack on religion has been the accusation that belief in God is irrational—that there is no rational basis for belief. The public dialogue with religion has involved a back-and-forth, in which the believing have had to prove the reasonableness of their religions. In this dialogue, the central contradictions in Christianity have become ammunition for atheists. The allegations are that the virgin birth is scientifically implausible, that it makes no sense for Jesus to literally be God in the flesh and that, while Christ died on the cross, he probably did not rise from the dead. The response from liberal Christians is often to accept these facets of their religion as symbolisms, metaphors or stories that should not be taken literally. While I can see this approach is made in good faith (no pun intended), I think the basis of these discussions is problematic. To say we can understand God with reason would be to say we could use our understanding of the natural world to discuss the supernatural. But that would mean applying the logics of a world with limits to a being which, definitionally, is capable of anything. The mystery of faith is so important because it shows us how we should deal with logical questions about God’s

miracles. We are invited to take pride in the nonsensical elements of Christianity and stress the nature of God and faith. Faith is entirely irrational, which is what makes it unique. It is a wild drive, a strong, strange persuasion, which brings us to believe in the wildest things. Faith drives Christians to believe in a perfect God who took on the imperfect human form, was born of virginity, and who came into the world to speak his message to a world that refused to follow him—a God who would, in the end, die so we could live eternally. It is a persuasion which does not come from logic, but emotional assuredness—and any time you try to explain the persuasion, this particularity of faith becomes apparent. Because it is not bound in anything but a drive, it is inexplicable. If you tried to explain faith, you would realise the constraints of human understanding. To explain faith, you would have to master your own mind, apprehend your emotions (which you do not own), and try to find the words available in the English (or whatever) language to describe the sensation involved. You would have to explain something you cannot own or determine, something given from God, as your own intelligible experience. The experience of faith is a recognition of our internal limits. But if we dwelt further—if we tried to understand God with human logic—we would rub up against external limits. We exist in a world where all our knowledge relies on foundational truths we accept, most of which we will never test for ourselves. Everything we can know about the world is filtered through our minds and bodies, interpreted and felt differently from person to person—and everything we think must be sent back into the world through language, with a myriad of possible understandings. The mystery of faith involves no reasoning for God’s narrative—it merely affirms it, emphasising the contradictions within. Christians should take this attitude to a public defence of their religion—and use their thankfulness for having such a powerful, nonsensical, gracious entity on their side, accepting the limits of human understanding. And by emphasising the ability of God to transcend our world, his love for us becomes even more powerful. So instead of playing down the nature of faith and God by trying to reconcile Christianity’s contradictions, maybe we should just accept God from the perspective of our mad faith—a powerful being at our side, who, beautifully, just makes no sense. Maybe the core of Christian being is hanging onto an incomprehensibly powerful God, as powerless humans, restricted in our experience, in a world we can hardly understand.

ART BY NELLIE SEALE

ART BY CHARLOTTE DOCKSEY

FINANCE

KEEPING UP WITH THE CRYPTOCURRENCIES KAAVYA JHA EXPLAINS BLOCKCHAIN USING SUPERFICIAL POP CULTURE REFERENCES. XOXO.

hat would Gossip Girl look like if it was built on blockchain? How is mining cryptocurrency like gaining Instagram followers? And, importantly, who cares and why? None of these are rhetorical questions; especially not the last. An interest in both bitcoin and The Bachelor may seem like a niche target demographic, but it shouldn’t be. Technology is the future. That’s what everyone says anyway; personally, I think we’ll know we’re in the future when we can eat nothing but grilled cheese and still look like Bella Hadid—but, I digress. Blockchain. Bitcoin. The Future. Let me, a person whose brain is filled with useless information about celebrities and tween TV shows, try explain crypto in a more accessible way. (Or more bizarre, depending on whether or not you procrastinate away every single waking moment on the internet.) BLOCKCHAIN Blockchain is simply a public record of transactions. Each transaction that occurs, whether that be a sale of bitcoin or a scandalous blast, is simultaneously and automatically updated across the network of users. Conversely, Gossip Girl works by sending a text to the anonymous Gossip Girl (let’s pretend that final episode never happened) who decides what to pass on to the rest of the network. But as blockchain is distributed, a.k.a. decentralised, there is no single entity (you know you love her) who controls the system and spread of information. It is a public ledger, meaning that there is a unique, shared version of data, unlike Gossip Girl’s text messages, which allow people to alter their version of the transaction history by deleting messages. Surely continuously updating all these transaction records would cause too much of a strain on all those atrocious BlackBerrys, but not to fear. Blockchain’s solution is literally in its name: after a number of transactions have occurred, blockchain saves all of the information into a “block”, which has a unique “cryptographic hash”, or digital signature, and continues to do so to create a “chain” of these, adding onto the end. The previous blocks are secure, and systems only have to update the last one, greatly reducing processing power. A basic bitcoin blockchain is simultaneously verifiable and anonymous, perfect for all the schemes of the teenagers of the Upper East Side. To create an account, you don’t need to share any personal information and bitcoin transactions do not disclose the identity of its users. So, if you ever get to go back in time and become your shady early 2010s American alter-ego, tell Chuck to buy some bitcoin for me. XOXO.

SMART CONTRACTS One of the most revolutionary parts of blockchain is the introduction of smart contracts. Smart contracts are pieces of code that form a part of the blockchain and so, by nature, have permanence and are protected from corruption. They have less to do with lawyers and legalities and are more like an automatic execution of a deal. The computer code is impartial and decides whether or not the conditions have been in met in order to self-execute the contract. The most basic application of this would be for purchases, i.e. only releasing the product if payment has been verified. But, if blockchain becomes universally adopted, there are more options. Online gambling companies that use smart contracts would have to display the explicit probabilities of winning into their contract. Data scientists are discovering that smart contracts may provide a tamper-proof voting process. As the Internet of Things connects more household electronics to the greater internet code, there are much more trivial applications too. For reality TV shows such as The Bachelor, there could be a smart contract for certain dramacausing contestants so that they get paid a bonus every time their mic picks up some smack talk. Thoughts @ Channel 10? ETHEREUM The most publicly known cryptocurrency is bitcoin, but it is no longer the most exciting. Enter Ethereum. To gain new bitcoin, people have the opportunity to mine it by verifying transactions and receiving coin as payment. This is pretty basic: either work hard to create new bitcoins or buy them from someone else. Kind of like in the good old days, the only way to gain followers on Instagram was to slowly build your collection of real-life friends and associates and request them, or to buy a bunch of followers from a shady app (you know who you are). But now, people are able to capitalise on many alternatives to quickly boost their following—they can follow a template on how to be “trendy”, do shout-outs, try get on the explore page, become as close as possible to a bogan Kardashian, and so on. In a similar fashion, Ethereum has evolved from bitcoin by offering the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which allows developers to create their own decentralised blockchain applications. People can even create their own cryptocurrencies using the EVM. Businesses can make big money with an initial coin offering in the same way they’d go public on the stock market. And me? I’m going back to watching vine compilation videos on YouTube.

ART BY REBECCA FOWLER

FOOD

THE TASTE OF SOCIETY B

ANNETTE SYAHLANI EXPLAINS HOW SOCIETY IS GUIDED BY ITS STOMACH

read, wine and cheese. Their relationship to us is more significant than simply being involved in the fulfillment of one of our primary needs. Food is a representation of our power to control nature and shape humanity. Converting the tasteless into the succulent, the inedible into the palatable, our ability to cook not only leads to the survival of our species, but influences society and enriches our culture. The first social experience that we have is breastfeeding, making “food” a medium that connects you with another. As Richard Wilk, an anthropology professor at the University of Indiana puts it, “Your first relationship as a human being is about food. Learning to eat is learning to become human.” The intertwining of food, culture and society began 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. Sumer, the region where the earliest human civilizations flourished, was where grains were discovered. The discovery meant that food could be produced in large enough quantities to support large permanent settlements. The subsequent growth of population packed in one area resulted in the earliest cities known to humankind. Ur, a Sumerian city-state located in the Fertile Crescent, became a densely packed city surrounded by farmlands and temples. But what happened when cities became even bigger and citizens needed help to manage food resources? Cooperation. The constant enlargement of the settlement made importing food possible. Ancient Rome’s geographical position enabled them to import food from far away. They had the access to the sea, in which was the quickest way to get food sources from other places while still ensuring freshness. In this way, grain was one of the reasons Ancient Romans conquered Carthage and Egypt. Hence, we can see food as one of the reasons for the expansion of their empire. The development of society and culture goes hand in hand. Food, then, moves beyond the narrative of survival and the creation of society. It is intertwined with culture and a physical manifestation of lifestyle. According to Tom Standage, the author of An Edible History of Humanity, the use of spices as flavouring was a turning point in gastronomy as it created a another level of experience in eating. Spices were expensive commodities that were not generally used by the average person. In the 14th century, it was said that one pound of nutmeg cost as much as seven fat oxen. The exorbitant prices of these spices meant that they became one of the things denoting nobility and wealth, further dividing those who could afford the highest quality of spices from those who could not.

Herbs and spices are wrapped up with narratives of myths, folklore and legends, as they were often sourced from other lands than the ones in which they were enjoyed. Let’s take basil as an example. Scorpions were associated with basil and it was thought that eating too much would breed scorpions in the brain. These other lands were exploited and colonised for their richness of spices. In 1605, the Dutch East India Company operated a plantation economy at Moluccas, which was as harsh as the sugar-island plantation of West Indies. Food also has played an imperative role in wars from ancient times. A famous example of this principle is Joseph Stalin. The famine in Ukraine created by his policies, crushed people who were seeking independence from his rule. At least seven million people perished in Ukraine, deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands. This case further highlights the relationship between food and power. We have learned that being able to access certain kind of food denotes class, but the ability to control food creates a large authority over the lives of others. The logic behind the potency of food as a weapon is simple; humans become powerless when deprived from their most basic needs. Defenseless and effeminate, they are easy to control. What launched the modern restaurant industry was the French Revolution. The revolution saw the break-up of the aristocratic household, which meant that cooks had to find ways to continue their employment. The revolution also saw the softening of legal rights that were licensed by the king to control specific food (e.g patissiers, rotisseurs, charcutiers). This perpetuated into the creation of a middle-class customer who delighted in the egalitarian idea that “anyone who could pay the price could get the same meal”. A variety of dishes— individually portioned and priced—were readily available to order for the first time in public. Therefore, eating out is a practice that emerged as history happened and culture evolved. The restaurant space eventually became the norm— something we don’t think twice about. Today, there are a multitude of narratives and stereotypes associated with what, how and where you eat—these details signify your very own identity. Being a vegan or vegetarian, eating paleo or kosher may give an indication of who you are as a person—even your worldview, ethical and moral beliefs. The relationship between food and society continues. It is in constant flux, perpetually changing and manifesting in different ways, but the link will always be there.

ART BY CATHY CHEN

PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTOGRAPHY AND DEATH BY DANIEL O’NEIL

hotography puts me in mind of death. This might sound deliberately enigmatic—like the sort of pretentiously gnomic utterance that a certain species of Melburnian might drop after a few martinis at a gallery opening in a desperate bid to appear interesting—but I mean it quite straightforwardly and seriously. In taking a photograph we are adding to the archive of images to which our lives will be reducible upon our demise. This was driven home to me most forcefully after the death of my father, and by the process of assembling and then watching that photographic slideshow of his life. As the slideshow progresses, characteristics of the man are added to our composite mind’s-eye image of him: these characteristics emerge not from any one single photo, but from being exposed to multiple photos of him. Take, for instance, the images of my father beside a car trapped in mud in Chad, in front of the Gateway of India in Mumbai, in the gardens of the Istana in Singapore: from these we come to regard him, in that mind’s-eye image, as a man lucky enough to have seen the world. Now I find myself obsessed by the idea of what my own funereal slideshow will look like, what characteristics mourners will extract from it and add to their image of me. Whenever I suspect I might have my picture taken—when I am slated to attend some function or event at which a professional photographer might be present, or whenever I plan to have brunch or a drink with a friend I know to be particularly Insta-happy—I can’t quite shake the thought that one day the resulting visual record might one day end up in my slideshow. But it is not simply that photography is associated with death through its ability to memorialise those no longer with us. The relationship runs deeper, for photography may itself be the means by which we kill our experiences of the world around us. Wordsworth once wrote that Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— We murder to dissect. And so it is that in the name of capturing and analysing on film things and events we see around us, we are, in a way, emptying them of their vitality.

Susan Sontag once wrote: Photographs state the innocence, the vulnerability of lives heading toward their own destruction, and this link between photography and death haunts all photographs of people. When I was a teenager, I was given a DSLR camera by my parents as a birthday present, and before long I had become a keen (indeed, an obsessive) photographer. I would take my DSLR with me everywhere I went, photograph every experience I had. One day my mother took me aside. Without reproach, she suggested that there was a danger in photography, that it was all too easy to allow the sense of satisfaction at having captured a moment to become a substitute for truly experiencing that moment. In other words, one might look back and realise that one had merely photographed, rather than having actually lived. I remember being hit with a sickening realisation that this is precisely what I had been doing: I would visit, say, Waverley Cemetery, and, instead of marvelling at the beauty of this forest of marble perched on a cliff over the Pacific Ocean, I would take a few photographs of it, satisfy myself that the place was more or less recorded on my camera’s SD card, and then leave. Looking back, I was afflicted with the classic pathology of the collector, like a lepidopterist who pins and labels countless butterflies in his drawers, ticking species off as “collected” without ever taking even the briefest moment to contemplate, say, the shimmering azure wings of the blue morpho. Photography becomes a way of neutralising living and vibrant (and hence unpredictable and threatening) experiences— putting them in the killing jar of the viewfinder, rendering them still and harmless so as to allow for later, more cerebral consumption. It is, in other words, a form of taxidermy, not for dead animals but for lived human experiences. And so, while my mother’s counsel did not kill the photographer in me, but it certainly tempered him. (In one of the Spanish Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela’s short stories, a professional photographer gets thrashed by his father for having taken up a vocation allegedly unfit for a man: I suppose I got off fairly easy, as parental remonstrations for photographic conduct go.) I now take my DSLR out only for more special occasions—I do not allow it to distort my experience of everyday pleasures as I once did.

ART BY CATHY CHEN

CLIMATE CHANGE

RELIGION AND THE CLIMATE APOCALYPSE “I

KATIE DOHERTY ON FAITH, POLITICS AND GREEN CHURCHES

pray for that rain everywhere else around the country. And I do pray for that rain. And I’d encourage others who believe in the power of prayer to pray for that rain and to pray for our farmers.” When Prime Minister Scott Morrison said this about the drought currently affecting large swathes of Australia, he was roundly—and rightly—criticised. Australia has effectively no climate policy and is one of the highest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. Directing the country to rely on prayer as a response to a crisis linked to climate change, rather than taking actual political action, is only the most obvious and farcical of any number of signs that the government does not care about climate change. This is not to say anything against those who believe in the power of prayer, or otherwise hold strong religious beliefs. In fact, this is to argue that these beliefs could be important in the fight—but only if they are used to inspire action. “It is good to pray and talk about God’s creation, but that faith also bears visible fruits,” writes the Green Churches Network, an organisation based in Canada. One of many similar organisations around the world, the Green Churches Network seeks to “[help] Christian communities in Canada care for God’s Creation”. This takes a variety of different forms, “from the energy efficiency of religious buildings to the prayers in the liturgy [to] environmental campaigns”. An article on the website of the Archdiocese of Brisbane explains the relevance of environmentalism to religious organisations: “For Christians, ecological stewardship is the conviction that every gift of nature and grace comes from God and that the human person is not the absolute owner of his or her gifts or possessions but rather the trustee or steward of them.” A faith-based environmental movement makes sense in this context, and could be highly useful. After all, a study in 2010 estimated that only 16 per cent of all people are unaffiliated with a religion, meaning that the number who are influenced by their religious beliefs, and could be inspired to act as a result of them, is enormous. Climate change is a social problem, as much as it is a scientific or environmental one, so social fixes are required. This particular social fix is relevant because our problematic relationship with nature has deep roots in religious beliefs. Genesis 1:28 in the English Standard Version of the Bible has God saying to man, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the

earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” With such an attitude towards the natural world underpinning the actions and mindsets of people in Christian nations—such as the UK and the US, which are historically largely responsible for climate change—it is little wonder that we would prioritise the economy and our individual comfort over the wellbeing of the planet. The attitude that we are its masters leaves little space for the understanding that we are utterly reliant on the health of our planet for the survival of our species. One step towards changing this mindset could be changing our understanding of what this dominion is intended to look like. Christopher Brown, the Pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Berthoud, Colorado, writes that dominion is a translation of the Hebrew word radah. This specifically refers to the “dominating rule of a king”, and, he says, is used again in Psalm 72. In that instance, though, the nature of the rule is expanded upon further—in the New Standard Revised Version of the Bible, it says that this ruler “delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy”. Clearly, the meaning of radah in the biblical context is different from the connotations “dominion” carries in English. There are still issues with a conception of the human–nature relationship as one in which the human is a benevolent ruler tasked with protection, given our dependence on the earth, but this seems a healthier place to begin from than “force and harshness”. There is obviously far more work that needs to be done than simply changing our attitudes towards nature and the planet. However, our attitudes are what has made the level of harm we have already done possible and acceptable, and a change may be what we need in order to motivate the urgent work that needs to be done in order to mitigate climate change. So if Scott Morrison wants a prayer for our current situation, the World Union for Progressive Judaism has one for him that might actually help: “But roll back the scroll, / Read the black fire again / Carefully; read the white, / The unwritten. / Our task: / To take care / Of God’s world. / Between the letters, / The warning of our failure. / God will not flood the earth. / But we, who thought our tiny choices / Would have no effect on this world… / We have left it late to awaken.”

ART BY WEN QIU

SCIENCE

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH JASON STATHAM I

ROHAN BYRNE PRESENTS THE ABSURD (AND REAL) SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF THE MEG

t happened the way these things always do. A scenic spring evening; Chandon and a perfectly-cooked risotto; footsies under the table; casting off into the shimmer and jangle with a plan to have no plan, on a night when every lip seems to utter “que sera!” There, then, beneath the fireballs and fountain-falls, by an impressionist canvas of urban effulgence bright on the sultry boat-rippled water, you whispered in my ear: Let’s watch the new Jason Statham movie. The Meg—the latest excretion of a film industry running desperately low on ideas—takes the premise of the immortal Jaws and asks “What if the shark was… well… bigger?” Named for its most charismatic cast member, megalodon, the film portrays the increasingly far-fetched efforts of a grizzled but resolutely family-friendly deep-sea diver on a white whaleesque hunt for revenge on a prehistoric super shark that… ate a submarine? I think? Backstory takes a backseat as Jason Statham stretches a wetsuit over his sagging dad-bod and takes to the sea for two hours of white-knuckle harpoon-heavy action, liberally dotted with romance, Ruby Rose cameos, and a frankly impressive volume of Chinese propaganda for a film pitched at rednecks. Of course, while most viewers were busy playing “will they or won’t they” with Jason’s very much younger romantic interest (whom one can only hope gets a lot more screen time in the Chinese edit of this surprisingly modern trans-Pacific co-production), your correspondent was carefully scrying the screen for the sorts of scientific whoopsies that make B-movies so popular with people who should, and do, know better. I failed. Instead, in no particular order, I present the three most far-fetched features of this year’s summer blockbuster that are both awesome and absolutely real. 1) The shark. Megalodon went extinct a few million years back, not long before our ancestors started paddling about, which is some sort of serendipity if you ask me. This chap was huge—somewhere from 10 to 20 metres long—boasting a set of jaws that even Jaws would balk at: large enough to park an Astra in and strong enough to pancake it at a snap. Most of what we know about megalodon is deduced from its teeth, which are huge, sharp to this day, and abundant enough that you can have one for $15 (or just steal one from

a quarry like I did). Based on the distribution of those teeth all around the world, palaeobiologists have determined the Meg had a “cosmopolitan distribution”, which must have been a boon for Pliocene fashion watchers. 2) Living fossils. There are plenty of examples of supposedly extinct species popping up in the present day, as well as critters deemed mythical until facts proved otherwise. The coelecanth, a large barramundi-like fish, was thought to have perished alongside T-Rex some 66 million years ago until a fisherman dragged one up in the 1930s. The giant squid was myth for millennia—today they grace museum cabinets all over the world. Closer to home, botanists were astounded by the 1994 discovery of the Wollemi Pine in a remote (and secret) gorge somewhere in the Blue Mountains. One hundred trees are all that survives in the wild of a forest that spanned a continent 40 million years ago. You can get your very own from any good nursery—my dad killed his but you may fare better. 3) Sunless seas. In the film, the megalodon is discovered skulking in a hitherto undiscovered reach of the Marianas Trench, where volcanic vents in the sea floor provide warm waters and sulphurous food for a thriving sunless ecosystem. This verdant deep-sea oasis is hidden from view by a curtain of hydrogen sulphide, or “rotten egg gas”, precipitated at the “thermocline”—the sharp boundary between the hot water below and the cold water above. When Jason Statham’s bumbling rescue attempt predictably goes awry, a jet of hot water is allowed to breach this layer, funnelling the Meg up to shallow waters ripe with screaming beachgoers. Incredibly, all of this is true (except for the shark part). Since the ‘70s, biologists have become aware of a whole hidden ecosystem thriving in complete isolation from the sun. Not only is this amazing (and beautiful) in its own right; the discovery also radically increased the chances of discovering alien life elsewhere in the universe—perhaps in our own backyard. There may even be rogue planets teeming with life in the dark depths of space where no stars shine: to them, the notion of living off sunlight would be as unpalatable as—well, rotten eggs. I walked into The Meg expecting a relaxing, dumb, pulpy film. I walked out nattering about life, the universe, and everything. Needless to say, the date was completely ruined.

ART BY RAYMOND WU

COMMENTARY

THE “A” WORD BY VEERA RAMAYAH

or Halloween this year, I know, whether on Instagram as I am scrolling in bed the next morning, or in real life at a Halloween party, I will see a white person guilty of cultural appropriation. This isn’t a statement that can be debated; at this point, I am just stating fact. I know this for a fact because it is the world we now live in. It is a world in which it is acceptable to look at a culture and instantly brainstorm a costume idea, with thoughts of what colour schemes would best complement the feed. Many people will be guilty of cultural appropriation this year. But, like always, they will not face trial. They will return to their lives the next day once the costume has been stepped out of on their bedroom floor, albeit a tad haphazardly after a couple of drinks. There will be no trial, the only jury the faces of PoC as we look on, in oftentimes silent judgement for fear of retribution, the ribbon of silence so repetitively binding our tongues in order to remind us of our own place, our own niche we occupy in almost every setting. I used to love Halloween. Like many other kids growing up watching American movies, October, conversely to the Southern Hemisphere brought autumn, autumn colours and of course, Halloween. I loved getting dressed up, sometimes with my younger brothers and going trick-or-treating in our neighbourhood. Halloween now has become a time of unease. It has become what I like to call “racist Christmas”. No other time of year is more inundated by the appearance of problematic “costumes”. Suddenly, a culture that is otherwise referred to as “oppressive”, a country that is otherwise referred to in conjunction with another high-crime statistic, becomes “exotic”, and I can bet you good money—not rupees of course—that there will be someone in my DMs asking to borrow a salwaar or lehenga for the night. So, let’s talk cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation only entered the public lexicon in 2017, with the Oxford dictionary defining it as “the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.” Since the word’s widespread use began,

however, any discussion on this topic often quickly becomes smothered in a handful of white guilt and fragility, with echoes of “am I not allowed to do anything anymore?” (or variations of such) lingering in the air. Let me pre-empt the obvious rebuttal. It seems that white guilt is like the chivalrous knight—its defence mechanisms are what keep it legendary. The most common response to telling white people that they’re guilty of cultural appropriation: “Well why do you/People of Colour appropriate our culture then! You wear our clothes and we don’t say anything?!” There is a stark difference between appropriation and assimilation. When People of Colour have to conform to behaviour— whether that be the dress codes, cultural practices or language belonging to the dominant group—it is a means of survival. If we adhered to strictly wearing our own cultural clothing, speaking our native languages, and practising the same cultural practices that are often viewed as “barbaric” in the West, we would soon find ourselves ostracised and made examples of why we should be “sent back to where we came from”. When PoC express our cultures in whatever ways we seem fit, it is, on the most part, viewed negatively. We are told that we are “not doing a good enough job of assimilating”. That “this is Australia, not India”. That we should “make more of an effort to fit in here”. But, let any Instagram influencer, or any white girl, arbitrarily sling a sari across her shoulder and slap on a bindhi for the ‘gram, and suddenly they’re beacons of culture and exotic beauty. The issue, much like other forms of racism, is institutional. High fashion and big-name brands have an appalling track record with profiting from appropriated culturally-significant items. From Gucci using white models wearing Sikh turbans on the runway, to Victoria’s Secret using a Native American headdress on a white model during the annual fashion show, to Chanel releasing a $200 boomerang. Cultural appropriation is pervasive and perverse, and it seems to be everywhere nowadays. Your favourite Melbourne brunch spot advertising a new “turmeric latte”, is unknowingly capitalising on years of

ART BY POORNIIMA SHANMUGAM

COMMENTARY

Ayurvedic knowledge. It’s the theft of cultural practices innate to ancient traditions for consumption by the mass market. And, to make matters worse, the financial benefits that come with promoting these appropriated products to a largely white market base are rarely ever enjoyed by the people whose culture it was originally from. It’s even in entertainment: the show Married at First Sight, for one, is a fitting example. The premise of the show is basically an arranged marriage; family and friends are consulted about the traits and qualities their loved one would like in a partner, and someone is picked and matched up to how best they fit these descriptions, with the happy couple only meeting for the first time at the altar. On Australian TV, it’s an entertainment goldmine, but one mention of how my grandparents were brought together by an arranged marriage warrants pitied glances, the word feminism being thrown around, and an overall air of disdain for an “antiquated” practice. I was once asked if the bindhi I so proudly wore to school was a “skin infection”. I, like most other Indian girls growing up in the diaspora have been called “dot head” and received some form of negative commentary about our decision to wear a bindhi in public. It’s almost as if the public sphere heralds the “abuse”; that it’s fine to be visibly different from the majority outright with skin colour, but the minute that you brand yourself different even further, by wearing a bindhi or dressing in ethnic clothing, suddenly you’re a pesky spot that just needs one more scrub with a bleach-laced stare. Forget that bindhis are an intrinsic part of Hinduism and Indian culture, forget that they represent chakra, or are a sign of marriage, what matters in the eye of the West is that ASOS places them under the Halloween accessory tab. For a humble $2.99, you too can be guilty of cultural appropriation! The bindhi is a cultural icon, and one that is full of religious and social significance. For many years, so many of our cultural practices and rituals were banned under the British rule of India. Wearing bindhis or our traditional clothing or even eating our traditional food are forms of protest. They are acts of defiant reclamation, of finally being able to express ourselves and our heritage without fear of colonial persecution. There are many blonde-haired, blueeyed Instagram influencers who don traditional Indian clothes

and jewellery on my feed; perhaps it’s Instagram’s way of perpetually raising my blood pressure. But, everytime I scroll past these pictures, it humours me to see just how carefully their photo has been taken, how well crafted their matching photographer must be to capture a sliver of indifference in a sea of poverty and destitution. Ignorance is a hell of a drug. Not every Person of Colour will take issue with appropriating elements of our cultures. However, cherry picking where and when to use said cultural objects based on your social calendar is problematic in itself, when you take into account the glaring fact that we don’t get the lavish luxury of choosing when to be brown. As Angelica Maria Aguilera says, “It must be so much fun: to be a part of a culture for one day and leave before the killing happens.” The lifetime of prejudice, abuse and mistreatment because of our ethnicity isn’t something that can be stepped into as easily as a borrowed lehenga. When we wear our traditional clothes, we don’t get to stop the negatives that come with expressing and being proud of our culture and heritage. For white people, the consumption of our cultures is not unlike getting a burger from McDonald’s: extra “clout” and a frenzy of heart reacts on the side, but hold the discrimination. In every discussion I’ve been a part of on cultural appropriation, at some point, someone raises the point about the difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation. Appreciation is always welcome in the PoC community, it’s part of acknowledging our diversity. Respect and understanding are cornerstones of appreciation, something that is painfully lacking when it comes to appropriation. Cultures are not costumes, period. You shouldn’t look at a group of people, take their culturally (and, often, religiously) significant clothing and symbols and immediately think costume and theme ideas. If you are in a space where you have been invited by a Person of Colour to engage in and participate in their culture, by all means, take part and join in. What sets this scenario apart from your regular “cultural appropriation horror story” is that it happens on our terms, not yours. Your invitation to continue the pillage of cultures that were never yours in the first place has been revoked, until next Halloween, of course.

ART BY POORNIIMA SHANMUGAM

ART BY YUSHI WU

CREATIVE

A SMALL COLLECTION OF THINGS IN REVERSE BY JORDAN DE VISSER

sat at zero for the longest time, expecting that once I’d started pushing out, once the arterials had been drawn and there was a kind of system of triumphant logic, the rest would fall into place. Most of an entire forest had been cleared and the more severe topographic features had been smoothed out and now here was the city, waiting to be real. I tried to start simply, on cheap cartridge paper so as to say to myself: this doesn’t have to be it. This is a foray, the mind leading itself out in careful arcs to see what’s there to be pulled down from the ideal. But even on the cheap paper, non-committal, I couldn’t start. The city remained unmanifest. I made the first scratchings and frightened myself, threw the paper away and sat in Erik’s spare room, feeling like there was everywhere to go and no place that really stood out. I heard him wake up and come down into the kitchen. I sat at the counter and he put the coffee on. This was a daily thing. There was something conspiratorial in the way we sat under the light from the rangehood, letting the steam from our cups crack our lips in the hours before Therese woke up. “Again,” he said, “I don’t know what to say. It’s large and it’s vague.” Erik and I spoke like people too often too close together. We talked in circles, entrenching one another’s patterns, meeting at the same place we always met, each day finding we’d bored just a little further down. But still, certain topics wear on a person, have been chewed on for too long, overstimulating the saliva. My work became one of these topics. I hated myself for bringing it up, but some mornings I was really at the edge. I needed to render the issue in three dimensions, in the space between me and somebody else—if only to hear my own thoughts parroted back to me. Erik was always gracious.

“Did you shave this morning?” he asked me. “Yeah?” “Shave in the dark, do you?” I dabbed at my chin and my cheeks. There were sharp patches of hair along the jaw and up below my cheekbone. I

adjusted myself on the stool so that the left side of my face was turned away from him. “So,” he said, “I’ve made my mind up—he’s going to be Erik Junior.” “How’d you come to that?” He floated the remainder of his coffee down his throat, wiped his lip, put the mug down gently in the sink and grinned. “I just decided that that’s what I want.”

It was happening, the only question was when. The trees had been cleared in a wide sweep, twelve thousand square kilometres of land was newly uniform. Nature had been squared into submission. A river kept its head down. By all the projections, a significant number of interested parties should have already bought in. Some had, or had come close, and then had dropped out without notice. The fear was that a mood or a current—political in nature and strictly antidevelopment—might blow in from neighbouring areas. The remaining investors were nervous, each was waiting for some other to be the first, and now our contract was up for review. They wanted proofs, something we could show, and without them we weren’t likely to be renewed. It fell to me to plan the roads for a city with no places or people. “What’s obvious,” Erik had said, “is that this is all the wrong way around. A city built all at once, ready-made, buildings going up around the dictates of roads already existing.” “It’s only for the contract,” I said. “I could put anything in those plans. They satisfy a requirement. None of it’s the way it will go.” “Then what’s the issue?” “It’s still my submission, I can’t be careless.” When I couldn’t draw, which was every day, I drove around. I let the roads encourage me in certain directions. I surrendered myself to be herded down the alleys of my day’s particular needs. As always I was exhilarated by the predictive intelligence of one-way roads and their convenient bisections. I took my routes on the suggestions of sure-standing signs.

ART BY DAVID ZELEZNIKOW-JOHNSON

CREATIVE

I knew roads, but I knew them in relation to the needs of people. I knew them as connective and logical, not as ends to themselves, pushing out into blind spaces on their own justifications, coming to settle and rest, attracting capital. The whole thing was disembodied. I drove without a destination, not fast but right on the limit, turning into streets on a whim, sometimes down triplewide industrial roads passing trucks with their cabs down like sniffing dogs, or through suburbs where I’d trace the cul-desacs in slow sweeps. I took dirt roads tossing rocks until I came to PRIVATE PROPERTY signs in stencil—dogs, cattle grids, crackling lengths of electrified fence. I was delivered to all of them, no effort on my part. Roads, I thought, put people and places in conversation with other people, other places. They were at their best when they went unnoticed. I met my mother at a Coffee Club. At her age, the present moment was only relevant so far as the practical considerations of living, and the only conversations I could get to stick were about the past, about family history. She had a fat envelope on the table in front of her, packed tight with photos she’d found in her garage. One was a photograph of a photograph, of my great-grandfather, staring at the camera like he was under duress. “He looks a lot like you,” she said. “I don’t think I see it.” The photograph was in bad condition. I thought it was probably a copy of a copy. It was creased and worn and thinnest at a point in the middle, from being folded. I gave it back to her and she put it in the envelope and smiled. “Well I see it. You might just have to trust me.” Whenever we met she looked at me like I was a thing she rented out to the world. When I was returned, now and again every few months, she took stock of the damages. Even as an adult I’d have to stop her from trying to lick her finger and rub at the unkempt, flaky parts of my face. “Honey, there’s something in your teeth,” she said. Late in the afternoon I went to Coles. Walking through the car park, I thought about the strategic distance and placement of trolley bays. This was the fourth time I’d been to the shops for Nicole, who had committed herself to staying inside her apartment at all times without exception. I was grateful at

least for the list she texted me, which was specific down to brand names and units of measurement. I carried the groceries up the three flights of stairs to her apartment in a cardboard box. It was easier to carry them this way. I kept the box on the back seat of my car. The door was open and her apartment was lit dusky orange by various lamps, diffuse light crouching shy of the ceiling. There was a dominant smell of fertiliser and exhaling soil. Two things were in abundance in her flat, and potted plants were the first. She was on her knees by a depressive begonia. “They’re not getting any air in here,” she said when she saw me. “It’s gotten to the point where I have to go around breathing on them, multiple times a day.” I unloaded the box on the kitchen counter. Cacti in Dolmio jars reached for me, bored and spiteful. Stray soil deposits across the bench charted the movements of itinerant herbs. Nicole moved from plant to plant giving out her hot breath like alms and I watched her in circles. In a row curving endlessly off from her shoulder, the action repeated on to a sightless point—the second thing her apartment was full of was mirrors. At a zebra plant she brushed her hair behind her ear and caught her own reflection. There were bags under her eyes, well-drawn and grey. She tugged on an eyelid into infinity. “Where are you living now?” “With Erik and his wife.” “Free rent?” “They’re very generous people.” She spotted me in a mirror and shrugged. I had introduced the mirrors, when I’d lived there, to play with the space. It was an experiment in all the possibilities of a room’s dimensions. First I set them up around the bedroom, then down through the hallway and across every wall of the apartment’s main living area. They were large mirrors with delicately detailed frames, but cheap, always second-hand.

What I had intended the mirrors to do was extend the space, imply unreal depths, chart territories of longing and imagination. What they ended up doing was insisting on the definite realities of the apartment as it was, reinforcing the room’s arrangement. A reification of the old and the same. I was perhaps idealistic about what effect the mirrors were going to have.

ART BY DAVID ZELEZNIKOW-JOHNSON

CREATIVE Her movements in the apartment had a quality of indentured attraction. The room tugged her here and there. While I was still unpacking, she came by force into the kitchen. I thought she might have been intending to help me with the bags, but she’d come to fill a watering can. “Hey, I’ve got a bag if you wanna—” “I don’t—” “Okay,” she said. “Anymore. I don’t anymore.” “Okay.”

I finished unpacking everything and tied the plastic bags into sock knots and tossed them into the cupboard beneath the sink. She was on the edge of her toes reaching up to water a plant above the fridge. She seemed nebulous and slight. I thought her pale skin might be tissue paper. “It’s not so cold these days,” I said. “You should start going out again. Go for a walk.” “I can’t. Very little air gets into this apartment and I have to breathe on the plants or they’ll die.” “Yeah but surely—” She pointed at my stomach, amused. “You’ve buttoned your shirt wrong.” I looked down and she was right. The softest, most unpublic section of my stomach was clearly visible through a tear-drop opening between two buttons. I cringed to think that I must have been that way in Coles. Now that every plant had been sufficiently breathed on, she made the same prescriptive journey around each of them, giving just a small amount of water at their bases, which gathered orb-like on the top of the soil before soaking down. On every wall she was there in countless iterations, bending around corners out of sight from my observer’s position. She seemed to lend her sense of herself evenly across all of her reflections—she sensed my watching even though I was looking at the opposite wall. “I think they’re rude, really,” she said. “Mirrors. They force the disembodied spectator into remembrance of their own very real body. On every wall I have to contend with myself.”

door like this, close to leaving, a flirtation, at least once or twice whenever I came around. “Did you ever water my plants for me?” she said. “Did you ever ask?” “Should I have had to?” I went to the door and opened it outward. Syrupy afternoon light came in from the exterior stairwell. The air was brisk, reminding me of my skin. “It’s golden hour. Go for a walk.” “I can’t. There’s no air in here and I need to breathe on my plants.” Erik and I met again in our early-morning huddle. Five in the morning in winter. I whispered, not only because Therese was sleeping but because I felt like the day was unripe and my being awake somehow illicit. It was a constant feature of our morning meetings that I would sit while Erik would stand and variously lean in the rectangular area of the kitchen, moving now and then to the fridge or a cupboard, as though this house of his was orchestral, something for which he was a conductor. It didn’t matter to me, or to either of us, that so much of what we talked about was identical to the things we’d talked about before. On this particular morning he had news. It was an old topic but a significant development. Something we’d gone over a few times and had made a sort of conversational groove out of, he’d gone and turned into a trench overnight. “We’re moving to New York.” It had always been a possibility that Therese would take a job in New York. And moving there—the uhms and ahs of all things considered—had featured in a number of our conversations. What mystified me, however, was the sudden activation of words into something actual, happening. Our discussions about New York had seemed insulated, virtual, protected from actually happening by our very having them. I had thought that in this way we’d put it all at a distance. That words had the sudden authority to stir Erik into action felt a little like betrayal. I saw as many places as I could over the next couple of weeks. I had no idea what I wanted or where, but I was happy to be away from my desk, to not have to think about roads snaking out into placelessness, or cities in wait like blind pimples. When I settled on a place, Erik came to check it out. It was a small loft on Ann Street, with a high ceiling and a washing machine in the kitchen. “When the agent showed me the place she said something like—I can see you in a place like this.” Erik was studying the bay window with his hands in his pockets. “What do you think that means?” I asked. He shrugged. “Not sure dude.” I made us coffee to see what it felt like, but it was after midday and the street was loud and Erik had places to be. We held fast to the classics and kept our noses out of the future. His flight was that night. In the doorway, with his shoes on, he said, “Pluck your eyebrows, you’re starting to get like a uniform bar right the way across.”

I considered leaving the cardboard box in her apartment. I didn’t, though, and I dropped it by the door near my shoes. Since we’d broken up, I would allow myself to get close to the

ART BY DAVID ZELEZNIKOW-JOHNSON

CREATIVE

pescivore red bones parch first so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s saltwater sates cartilage thirst rough skin and a surul skeleton nothing to get bent out of shape over from door shore wolf and any other wide eyes throats and lamel loose a rakish trawl what unsettles more than the soil gold fins undredged brown in the oily heat broth skimmed clear for the squalene (fertile) smile thick for want of fat rowdy totipotent get yet ready sorted by the bellyful pink potable flesh rejected for what it does to the coastline

cavalier words of men are bribes to a god unwilling to receive them therefore let us break bread with the enemy a dead tongue refutes you r claim to landed purity with the pound of flesh flush with the want of salt thy kingdom for a sword to fall upon innocents let Lord be last among names of vanity I am called tooth gnasher fog breather flame waster offal eater benefactor of doubt let the lathe be gentle

BY ALSTON CHU

CREATIVE

TO ALL THE GIRLS I’VE LOVED BEFORE BY BELLE GILL – 2012 – She of the dark hair We’re writing secret notes to each other and sticking them on each other’s binders. The teacher side-eyes us while commenting on how ‘lesbianism’ is bad. I snort. That night, I lie in bed, rereading all of our notes I saved. I smile. – 2013 – She of the yellow pants I am about three seconds away from a complete breakdown. She sees me as I walk down the corridor. One look at my face and she just knows. Her arms wrap around me. I can breathe again. – 2014 – She of the big city She talks about how attractive she finds Indian girls with curly hair. I wonder if I am included on that list. I wasn’t. – 2016 – She of the wanderlust I send her drunken text messages I love you. Iloveyou. I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU I delete them while intoxicated. When I wake up, I can’t remember her replies. – 2017 – She of the heart-shaped lips We sit on the pavement, watching musicians busk. There is a smile on her lips, she is completely content. I watch her. I am completely content. I wander the streets listlessly for weeks after she leaves. I am lost. – 2018 – She of the choppy bangs We are watching a movie, a Ghibli classic. Our knees press against each other. The protagonist loses her love. Her head rests on my shoulder. Love is found.

ART BY AYONTI MAHREEN HUQ

CREATIVE

Bananas: A Timeline BY CHARLOTTE DARAIO

machete cuts through the stem of a 32-kilogram bunch of bananas. It falls onto the glistening shoulders of a bananero, who carries the monstrosity back to the packing plant. The still-green cluster is cut into manageable chunks, packaged and shipped globally. In wooden crates, the banana skins turn yellow. They develop brown spots. They become palatable. It’s 1947 and a ship carrying over 600 Italian migrants pierces the Mediterranean Sea like a flock of birds. On this ship is a girl named Annina. She lines up at the breakfast table, sandwiched between two men who reek of sweat and pomade. The top of her head reaches just below the table-clothed edge of the trestle. Her stomach rumbles. She strains her neck to see. For the last six breakfasts, Annina has eaten bread with jam—a meal that tastes the same everywhere in the world— but today she can’t see either ingredient. The man behind her gives her an impatient nudge and Annina reaches for a strange yellow fruit at the edge of a platter. She tears the banana away from its identical siblings and holds it limply in her hand. It’s crescent-shaped with rubbery skin, like nothing she’s ever seen before. In her impoverished village, where a single orange is a recurring Christmas gift, tropical fruits are beyond a novelty; they’re nonexistent. It takes one bite for Annina to decide that she hates it. It’s mushy and it coats her teeth in an unsavoury fur. She puts it back on the platter and gives it a tap to signal the finality of her decision. The man behind her tuts. He takes the banana, removes it from its skin and eats it in two bites. He scolds her: she should know better than to waste food. Eight years later, on a weekend in winter, Annina picks sprouts in a field near her Ferntree Gully home. She wears unflattering waist-high rubber pants to protect her from the mud and hums an Elvis Presley song. Along the dirt road beside this field, another Italian—a boy named Antonio—walks by. He can’t help but stare at the girl in the sprout paddock, whose hair tickles her hips. At the banana plantation in Ecuador, jungles of seven-metre tall banana plants sway in the breeze like faulty windmills. Sterile hybrids—mules in their own right—they’re unable to reproduce without human intervention: branch cuttings are replanted into waiting soil, becoming genetically indistinguishable from the adult trees. These stationary giants seem to wilt in the South American sun. But they aren’t overheated—they are known to thrive in these extreme temperatures. No—the plants, albeit slowly, are starving. Tiny unstoppable fungi spread through the soil of the banana plantation. They latch themselves onto the roots of these vulnerably identical mutants and colonise their vascular systems. Oxygen is deprived. Blood flow stops. Cultivators, smaller than ants among the suffocating plants, attempt to prune away limp leaves. But their actions are futile; the trees are dying from the inside. All they can do at this point is watch as their prospect of profit yellows, shrivels and dies.

Annina marries Antonio in 1958. Their names anglicise to Anna and Tony and they begin to speak English when they go out in public. Some members of their small Italian-Australian community, pressured to assimilate, stop speaking to their children in their native tongue and Italian clubs are instead established to soften homesickness. Sometime during the mid-1960s, Anna’s abhorrence turns to appreciation: bananas, she reasons, are readily available and affordable—perfect for those with no money to spare. Anna doesn’t question why they’ve also become delicious over the last decade. Bananas start to appear in cakes and on platters. Topped with cream they are popular with her two children and, when found in their lunchboxes, shield them from the humiliation of being completely foreign—the fruit’s predictability is impossible for schoolmates to mock. Anna assumes she now has an affinity for bananas because she’s neglected childish distaste for practicality. She has no inkling that she may have a preference for one variety over another. The Gros Michel—the first banana variety that Anna ever tasted—becomes an endangered species and extinct in most parts of the world. It’s replaced by the tarter, firmer Cavendish. Despite being designed with immunity to the fungus that wiped out its predecessor, the Cavendish remains plagued with one fatal flaw: a defenceless genetic identity. Anna doesn’t think much differently of bananas until 2008. She is told that Tony, a lung transplant patient, should stay away from foods that could be contaminated with bacteria. The alchemist in her eyes turns potassium into gold. Anna’s love for the fruit increases tenfold because, along with their sterility and identical DNA, bananas have another defining characteristic: a thick, peelable skin that protects their soft flesh from the outside world. They fill her handbag and her fruitbowl; “bring a banana, just in case” becomes a mantra of sorts. She forces the fruit into the hands of her grandchildren after they visit her—for the car ride home, she tells them. They make the perfect snack, breakfast and dessert. But it’s 1951. Annina can’t imagine missing bananas like she will in 2010, when her husband is gone and Queensland’s plantations flood. At the moment she gives the banana a solitary tap, she believes she’ll never eat another. And in a sense, she won’t. She watches the man behind her chew the fruit’s pale flesh until it turns into mush. When it squelches between his open lips she looks away, disgusted. She dismisses his reminder of their poverty: she’s on her way to Australia—a place her father calls The Land of Milk and Honey. A promised land in itself. Gros Michel plantations in Ecuador are thriving and Annina turns away from a novelty that she will never taste again.

ART BY CAROLYN HUANE

ART BY VIVIENNE TRAN

Micro Village BY ELYSSIA KOULOURIS

dry chamomile grinds between my toes passing the skin of a goat hung proud air perfumed by fresh leeks stirred in warm water by an ancestor’s hand veiled by the oldest olive tree that shades me from harsh sun beams branches turn to veins connecting fishermen’s hats stacked deck of cards coffee steam sweet with crumbs of sesame seed on the rim sip slow beads in hands flick their morning nod to me I sit on straw woven by the wisest hands of the village thyme hung above the door frame tells me I’m home while Grandmother lays lace on the table

ART BY WINNIE JIAO

CREATIVE

The Wall

BY LUOYANG CHEN On a page of a textbook a frog at the bottom of a black well On a page of the textbook a croak called out from the well The sky in the frogâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes is only as big as the mouth of the well The sky in Chinese eyes is only as big as a freaky cock The frog in the textbook is being read The Great China Wall is being built

ART BY WINNIE JIAO

CREATIVE

CONTENT WARNING: GRIEF, FATHER’S DEATH

IT’S JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS BY LUCY MYERS i. You can remember when he used to sit there amongst the eucalyptus trees and the brown dirt. Coffee in that old white mug, words of some society or organisation faded from the ceramics and from your memory too. The air of your backyard entering his lungs becoming his heartbeat, slow and steady and sure. He’d watch over the house as if it were something new, that the fading paint and mess of items from another era weren’t an eyesore—sure to be eventually given to an op-shop and knocked down. Replaced with three new modern units made of reinforced concrete like that red-brick house around the corner was. He’d inhale the atmosphere and feel the wind prick at his skin, pondering the unfinished extension of the patio roof. You’d see him from your bedroom window and not even smile, just simply acknowledge that it was just another day following just another day following just another day. ii. Now you’re sitting there. You thought your favourite jumper would act like a woolen shield across your skin, but you can still feel the cold of a March morning cut away at you, as your shoes indent your forever lasting place into the mud. He was going to grow a lawn there, to soften the prickling dirt but the seeds never stayed or grew in patches. It feels like a theatre production playing out in your own house, the three paramedics wheel him away on a stretcher and you can see it in their eyes and the tightness of their jaws. Their seven in the morning calls probably all go this way. So, you wait and you wait and you wait for your mother to call from the hospital and tell you what you already suspect is going to happen. You know how this ends. It’s just one of those things. iii. And everything stops for a moment, you cannot walk away, you have to watch every moment in the slowest of motions and have it sink into your brain. The silent sigh of your mother, the hitched breath of your best friend, the whine of your dog as they try and comprehend how this could happen without a warning, without a crescendo. And you can feel their eyes rake over you, as if you have a FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE sticker struck across your forehead. You don’t really know. They can see you from a mile away, offer you a coffee to keep you on your feet, even though the bitter bean makes you wince, but nobody really has anything else to offer but soft muttered syllables and bouquets of flowers delivered to your door. You don’t blame them. It’s just one of those things. iv. The world seems to rotate slower than before, even though the clock ticks at the same pace and everybody else is moving to the same beat that’s at some sort of rhythm you heard once in a dream. You can’t keep up, your shoelaces are tied together and the wind hasn’t become any warmer—so you just sit in your woolen armour and wait for the tide to turn. It never does. Words slip out of your brain and clumsily fall out of your lips and that’s if they ever fall out at all. Sometimes you’re just left with the etymology of a word you don’t know that never quite reaches past the fence of your bottom teeth. You can’t tell anyone about it—because there’s no air in your lungs to form the words you don’t know. Well, either that, or you can grasp the words but you don’t know the order. You don’t know how to create a sentence that sounds like a sentence with meaning; how to tie those floating words with the ribbon from bouquets of flowers that have since decayed and are in your compost bin with eggshells, their words and your mum’s coffee grinds. Things never seem to end the way you start them. v. You start to realise it’s not the world that’s rotating slower—it’s you. Your body stays in your bed, still cold from that late March morning even though it’s May now and you’re meant to be somewhere else. The world can go as fast as it likes and all you can hope is perhaps the draught excluder will fall into place and block any breeze that comes through. It doesn’t matter what you do. There’s always a crack underneath the door and the cold wind still seems to trickle down your back even when you’re inside and the heater is set on a comfortable 20 degrees and everybody seems to scream “it’s all in the past” at you even when it’s silent and you’re on your own. vi. It’s just one of those things. Like—you know—those things. People tell you to tell them if you need anything, ignoring the fact you can’t tell the time because you can’t read the clock even though the clock is in clear view and you’ve read an analog clock a thousand times before. Your tongue twists on itself as it attempts to find the words to make it real, to be able to cast its shadow, so you can compare its form against something else. But it’s formless, shapeless, it’s incomparable and it doesn’t matter what metaphors you use or analogies you make— so they say nothing and you lose them as they drive off with you in their side mirror. They leave you behind in the chilly March air reliving that morning over and over and over. That’s the secret cargo of the grieving daughter, robbed of words like you were a father.

CREATIVE

ART BY ASHER KARAHASAN

CREATIVE

more than wedded to the house BY NATALIE FONG CHUN MIN

for my dearest mother, Lee Ching Sung.

i. the tiles need shining today. the hurting needs moving, to another day. the news needs to be fed yesterdays. the food needs to sit for much of the day. too long, too long, gone forms. ii. I open my newspapers inviting somnolence subconsciousness to render my noon nebulous; the neck ache from a bad position on a good sofa is a gain, a good bargain. iii. tell me something about your day the laundry basket hasn’t already. I read the soiled handkerchief like an open book; an experiment – you left sweets in your pocket again. I have told you not to, haven’t I? I wrestle your handkerchief, the cartoon patterns glued together by sweet melted colours, now I cannot tell if you had been crying transparently, and it makes my heart ache in the wrong places. how many firsts has this square cloth been through with you, that I have not? How does pain always evaporate before it’s gone?

iv. your good days are chalked in the residue of your shower. I notice you scrub less when your hair stays on your head. I assume on days as such, you don’t have too much on your mind. It works out for me too. I don’t tell you I don’t enjoy cleaning bathrooms. you should be under the impression I am working harder than I should. iiii. then there are cups waiting to be filled. sometimes soy instant milk powder (clumps and glues to the sides of mugs) sometimes tea leaves mixed curiously (activates my godly intuition for ratios) sometimes coffee black as an eclipse (I take the cup away before you see the remains and think it a prophecy) v. an understood hum of edelweiss shared like smoke between engines, coffee makers, hand-painted tea cups, souvenirs not sizing one another up, simply relenting, revisiting Time well-frozen in photos we wish to hole in forever. sometimes I think, if I concentrate hard enough, unblinking, will the sting of my eyes match the sting of my heart? will we thaw from age, will we be little again? vi. forgive me if I should stutter one day, or flounder as I recalibrate my caveat of hopes; I have been strangled, puppet strings of patriarchy have kept me in a domestic nutshell. your education teaches you to rock the boat but how can I, who’s never learned, handcuff the oars that have taken me to where I am today?

ART BY AMANI NASARUDIN

CREATIVE

you tell me there is a sky beyond the blues, clouds beyond the whites, you tell me what I never dreamt of hearing, that in biology, you learned heat maps meant colour matters beyond our skin, colour blooms despite our skin, that though self-defense teaches us to wear the sunscreen on our sleeves, anything can be surpassed if you have enough feminine will. (but all I think of is the discounted sunscreen I’ve bought, whether it will be effective in shielding you from the heat of anger, fear, contempt, love, pride and shame.) vii. if I had known what I did now, I would gather neon liquid forests – pink, green, yellow, atop shaved ice, and be generous with red beans and rice cakes; it is your birthday after all. (how old is too old for birthdays?) my birthdays have never been too special, but yours remind me why I am worthy of mine. yours marks my success at being a true woman. viii. everything you need is right here but you still need to go around and around and around the world, (your best bet is eighty days) to find what you really want. viiii. there is a chance people will call you out at the markets, down the alleys, in the dark hearth of night, the goblin men may try to feed you praises, but I am confident I will feed you paranoia enough, hoping you will find it reasonable in a few years, and feel my terror at the possibility of losing a child to strategy and the absence of hindsight.

(I would let you out till the clock strikes midnight, but you have no glass slipper, and I have no wand. We must concede to who we are, under the cloak foster the courage to avoid being in plain sight.) x. your grandfather wears bald like a crown, an ornament, and I don’t expect you to treasure your hair like an accessory, baby girl, no matter how you scream agitated at the loss of Length, (which you reveal in ten years, that it wasn’t hair but femininity you’d lost, on those nameless floors) but I will have you remember that girls with long hair are messy, uncontrollable, and Beauty is not something to be fought for, not something you ought to raise your voice for, not something you should be allowed to seek for, until you are old enough to know better. It is your hair, but it is my decision. the first time I took you to the hairdressers, you never wanted to look me in the eye again; it was your first taste of betrayal, I cannot tell you that I regret it in retrospect, or that I still cannot, have not learnt to tie a braid, I was merely avoiding what I cannot control – the unruliness of young hair, of hot-headed youth, of the time which will never come again for me, that lies ahead of you.) xi. I turn at every ‘mummy!’ as though a pet reacting to its owner calling its name. I wonder if it is relief I feel when I realise it’s not you. xii. yesterday we were making cookies, and for a while, it was just our clumsy hands, teaching one another to knead the dough in different ways, (we had our own strengths), it was as important to be soft as it was to be hard.

ART BY AMANI NASARUDIN

CREATIVE

you picked up from the drawer, the mould we used to make jellies, and I had to tell you those were not made to make cookies. you said I wouldn’t know if I’d never tried and I said I’d rather not burn the house down, trust me. a few years younger and you might have puckered your lips and sulked till I distract you with a lolly, but it was getting harder to distract you, when you have learned to distract yourself. I watched you cautiously, still half-expecting you to burst into tears, but instead you burst into questions and I couldn’t tell if I would’ve preferred you cried instead, so I could comfort you, instead of searching my soul for answers I have to sugarcoat. why do people make things for this and not that? why do people make certain things in heart shapes and others in stars? why do we only have star cookies and heart jellies but not star jellies and heart cookies? essentially, what is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? I told you someday you would be able to make whatever you want, and no one will be able to stop you. (not even me.) (especially not me.) xiii. you squirm and wriggle your way out of nature, as soon as something foreign touches you, takes interest in you, with all its six-legged bodies and silent bites. you listen for the songs of birds that are losing their voices, their lives, their mates and wonder why you cannot recognise their cries for help before it was too late. I tell you there used to be a cacophony of beasts outside my window, feasting on the quiet of night, and it wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid, I just got used to having to fend for myself; they are not your friends, but they are not your enemies either. we’re all trying to live here, trying to stamp proof of our being here.

xiiii. you like to ask me if I would have preferred a son, instead of you; each time as confronting as the last, as I struggle to feel guilty and/or affronted, as if you were saying I hadn’t done enough to prove I love you more than you could imagine. but I always realise after, that it was your imagination that I could not rival, your uncanny ability to imagine yourself as a son, you saying, ‘maybe grandma would love me more, but as a boy, I could not love you as I did now,’ and seeing my blank face, adding, ‘or at least not be able to show it. maybe I would only care about cars and who has the best collection, and maybe that would be a way of proving who had the best mother.’ xv. I didn’t think the day would come so soon. mothers don’t do well at airports. but how to be a mother without smothering your dreams? how to be a mother to an empty house, full of old skin and loose hairs, your favourite perishable foods? how to be a mother when I have to stop myself orbiting around your schedules, your secrets, your sanity? how to be a mother, may be the last of things I have to teach you, you have to pause somewhere around medium-rare, you have to push them out the nest before they can feed themselves; even if it hurts, you have to let the days take over, let them take a stand, to foster, to flap, to flee from being the pearl in your palms. and one fine day, you might stand out against the dying sun, washing dishes by the assertive pink of dusk, and find you couldn’t have done it without me.

ART BY TARA RAEMERD

new york poems BY SHARON DU i. in new york, i lived on the same street joan didion did in ‘goodbye to all that’. but i did not see yellow silk. i believe the colour suffocated my host’s frogs, who he kept only to produce DMT. they all died one night, and left me alive to explain new sentinel island. inversions: on elevators, with native strangers, i dance apologetic boustrophedon. joan didion ate almonds and edited vogue. she only ever voted twice. lucia berlin could love me, but joan didion is how i imagine god, a wire mother, and i don’t think she’d like me much. ii. no one can truly avoid. there is no silence, that is not slightly calico, that is not slightly aeolian. in the stadia between your teeth, or the parasang between you and i, or the palisades that are our bodies, the alchemical word could have been ‘empty’, or ‘tempting’. craquelure - i cherished that. we can talk between splinters. my parent’s marriage like resin, frozen blood, a seized sting. make merry war; shakespeare did it. every day, the sky is urging me the turpentine edge of exquisite mania, and fetid city stars itch at me like ants. and in the morning - aubade supposedly, a furious drown of insect blue, to sting my veins in winter arms. this is seduction’s opposite. this is advice on faking orgasms. these are emperor’s tears. the advent meaning is to endure ourselves, a cathedral weight.

you breathe like you pack suitcases, and these american clouds have your unibrow. iii. despite my best efforts, at stanford i failed to see a raccoon or a flaccid penis (excluding those by rodin). well, in new york on the compulsive polish of odessa steps, catullus’ sparrow is catullus’ penis is catullus’ sparrow. i still believe it. we’re coy when it matters. so 2017 was not a bad year, why not pretend i chose it? iv. nicholas or pyramus, i’m so starved of tenderness. no one could have imagined us. you did not care for the cannae or carnage i drew on your high school library book, but your eyes were so beautifully patient. the boys are saying ‘nebulous’. the girls are making janglepop. four years ago, you carried me across your school oval, so i’d feel your percussive cough. by the lush dark oil of the river with its mandarin scales of firelight, we turned like koi. i softened. you trembled like smoke. the oranges your mother peeled, they stung like fireworks. like lion fur. the parasang is sedimental, not igneous, and i was wrong to doubt fabius or distance. no more than drowned apostles, or burnt moths. you are simply a colour i can never touch again. we can stand close enough to share a shadow. there’s still rain on the ailanthus. i could live on what falls, or your freehand glance. This poem was also published in this year’s edition of Myriad, the People of Colour department’s annual publication. Myriad is currently available on stands around campus for all students.

ART BY BETHANY CHERRY

In utero waste

CREATIVE

BY RUXANDRA MARITIU

i’ve seen it all I’ve touched the wall I’ve felt the ball I’ve smelt the crawl red, in veins swarming white, in brain forming blue, in nails warning catheter, in heart reforming in these crumpled bricks of homes holding whips of thoughts in domes passed by ten thousand garden gnomes fear is crawling in my bones close the light and touch me, sleep tie myself down to my feet pain my needles in arms deep while i reach my mind so steep red white blue gold silver copper yellow mold do you feel her one last breath hold her touch her raise her, death earth worms crawl up from my brain saving now is all in vein hold held forgot forgotten

Mrs Doyle, make sure you pick up that kettle from the stovetop! Mrs Doyle, Mrs Doyle! Walking down the musky lane holding tight to his cocaine give her one second of fame touch my genitals in shame Hard parquetry, head is banging fangs in my legs tangling holding sight of the wall hanging her hair in your hands is dangling Mrs Sinead, I can’t come to mind after your children today, I will announce my resignation shortly. Pills on kitchen benches, swimming Fear in utero is dimming God’s gift wishes to be slimming

hold held forgot forgotten

ART BY BETHANY CHERRY

downtrodden

CREATIVE

My Chinese name is my middle name when I’m in Melbourne BY RACHEL TOH 我很感激我的父母for gracing me with an English name, unlike some peers who had to live by Rui Qi, Xian Yu. 我对the officer 笑, who passed me my passport back. They’d have to go by their last names – Tan, for example, rolls off the tongue easily. Hard to mess it up. 没关系 even if Tan is a common last name. I was told that they couldn’t find my parcel but they have found it now after 3 hours. Rachel Toh Xin Ying. Why was my name printed on my passport different, I was asked. I was looking for Ying earlier, Rachel is still your first name, right? Sorry about that, love. 没关系, I pulled out my student card to show her that here, I was Rachel Xin Ying Toh.

Translation: 我很感激我的父母: I’m very grateful towards my parents 我对the officer 笑: I smiled at the officer 没关系: It’s fine/ It’s okay

ART BY SHARON HUANG LIANG

CREATIVE

MARY SHELLEY DIED FOR OUR SINS BY DANIELLE SCRIMSHAW I was 17 and I was living it the fuck up but of course everybody’s trying to bring you down when you’re 17— everybody’s trying to bring you down no matter what age you are, really—so I guess my peak teenage moment never came because it was always being suppressed by some larger, older, force that was adamant on breaking the wild dream of teenage romanticism. I truly am a Romantic but not in the lowercase “r” sense, not in an I love you can’t you see how much I love you from the amount of candles I’ve lit this evening and the wine and the roses and the hot bath I have just run for you in our large, extravagant house although we are only working-class starving artists in our youth and I don’t know how we could have afforded this really but this is ROMANTIC, honey, and nothing makes any logical sense when YOU’RE IN LOVE, darling way. No what I really mean is that I’m Romantic in the gothic, early 19th-century sense, when the only thing that matters is Nature but the Industrial Revolution is suffocating your livelihood. My psychologist said that it was a lurid sense of egotism that made me feel so detached from other people, that I was self-centred, selfish, whatever you want to call it. I call it individualism, a defining feature of the Romantic movement. I also called bullshit on my psychologist (doubted that she even had the correct qualifications anyway) and stopped seeing her without informing my mother—just because you know what allostatic overload is doesn’t mean you should be counselling teenagers. And at this pivotal age of 17 I was studying English Romantic literature in high school and I loved the idea. Maybe it was because I thought Lord Byron sounded hot and wanted to fuck him. Charlotte Brontё obviously wanted to fuck him too, otherwise Mr “Byronic Hero” Rochester wouldn’t have been such a dick. One night I stood in the rain for hours. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but I figured that something would eventually happen. I was trying to evoke the Romantic era and maybe I hoped that I’d manifest. Being the middle of winter, though, I just contracted pneumonia and had to spend a week in the hospital. I tried to turn this into a positive by considering that Keats was sick an awful lot when he was alive. Being weak and sickly was just part of the Romantic experience.

My parents never visited me when I was in hospital but I wasn’t resentful—they were busy, they had their own lives, I have five siblings so maybe they just didn’t notice my absence. My friend Stephanie saw me every day though. In hindsight I’m pretty certain she had a crush on me throughout VCE, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I called her every Saturday morning, though, and played ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush into the phone. I wouldn’t say anything, just play the song as soon as she answered and then hang up when it finished. I never did explain why and I think she hated it, but it became such a habit that she just answered every week without fail. I was probably pretty awful—she always got really offended when I didn’t text her back within 48 hours, and I would constantly bail on our plans because something else would occur to me. “Sorry, Steph, I can’t go out this afternoon because I’m performing at the Frankenstein poetry grand slam.” That wasn’t a lie. I read a poem called ‘MARY SHELLEY DIED FOR OUR SINS’ as I performed an interpretative dance to ‘Spellbound’ by Siouxsie and the Banshees. I didn’t win the cash prize of $20 but I’m pretty sure the slam was rigged anyway. That the judge must have been fucking the winner because how else could you win Brunswick’s most sophisticated Mary Shelley–themed poetry slam with a twoline blank verse ‘Ode to Geneva’??? Mary Shelley kept her husband’s dead heart in a drawer of her writing desk and if that isn’t both romantic and Romantic I’m not quite sure what is. I think it was the realisation that I would never be this emotionally intense that brought upon the end of my own personal Romantic era (as well as my not winning the poetry grand slam, because what kind of fascist corruption is that?). But if I wasn’t prepared to keep the remains of my deceased lover in the drawer of my writing desk could I ever truly manifest? Could I ever convince my parents to fund a year-long solo trip to the Swiss Alps if I wasn’t going to follow Shelley’s instruction entirely? My instinct and lungs, which were terrified by the concept of getting bronchitis, cried NO, and so I became an 1880s Realist instead. Though I do still find myself oddly drawn to the ocean, and press flowers in old European books found in second-hand bookshops each spring.

ART BY RACHEL MORLEY

CREATIVE

POLYSPORIN BY LUKE MACARONAS The miracle cream your mum used to import from the USA, with the bulk pack of antihistamines and those throat lozenges from Italy. Antibiotic ointment we used to spread on everything. And overnight we would heal. I found a tube Half used and congealed in the cap. I wore it overnight on the pimples I keep picking. But it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t change anything.

ART BY RACHEL MORLEY

CREATIVE

七封情书 BY AMANDA TAN 一 The way it starts is the way it ends and I kiss you like the worst I’ve ever had is a paper cut. I dream of asking you out for coffee, watch the flowers grow in real time. You live above me so I stick stars on the ceiling. I’m hoping that they’ll help you sleep better. 二 Your name tastes like honey in my mouth. It’s sticky sweet dripping down my lip, slow, gentle sounds. Wine-flushed cheeks, a morning prayer kind of beautiful. When I get to the end I half expect you to call for me, and you never do. 三 Quiet, gentle creature. You’re stupid beautiful in darkness and light and tenderness spilling from every inch of you. I create a feature film out of all the ways you make my face warm: the first time you cried in front of me, your favourite brand of beer, your hand on my hair, your eyes in the dark. See, I’m bold for a timid lover and shy for a shameless friend. Vinyl underneath needle like an indescribable itch. 四 Here is linen landscape, you and me. You have a voice like the inside of an hourglass, and the world is fuller when there’s just the two of us. I am so tired of playing martyr, but you don’t ask for blood, just pulse. How does the distance between us account for the feeling of your hands rough against mine? Or, how do I say that sometimes I miss you so much that it shatters all the glass in the room? 五 In the evening, I leave red bean soup on the table for you and go to sleep alone. 六 I remember you best in a badly-lit room. Warm green eyes, you make me cry even now, you know. The dirt on your soccer cleats, wet from Saturday’s game. The plastic spoon snapped in half from our first ice-cream date. There is nothing poetic about you and yet, I keep trying to write you into existence, summon to the altar what left me long ago. I want you to know that I still mourn for the shade of sky you first kissed me under. When the winter winds blow cold and lonely, I always wonder if you’ve got your coat on you. 七 The way it starts is the way it ends and I’m standing at the edge of the universe, thankful for the days I have ahead of me. I look back and there you are, my favourite part of the story. Silent hourglass. Always, always warmth.

ART BY ILSA HARUN

winter

BY SARAH BOSTOCK

winterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drain in sophieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skin hands soaked in summers knowledge lavender & squash pumpkin seeds in brown paper keep well my vegetables layers steamed till translucent skin comes between teeth the tastes of cream, pepper - a rare admitted error keep well my vegetables the regulars drag their heels, eyes, catch on threads stitched between the two of us she waits alone I watch you water twice a day the soil and closing leaves.

in an unseen breeze

ART BY ILSA HARUN

1. Kiss her shoulders with peach lipstick on, remind the skin to soften. On the new day that we have here, the sun comes out more often. Where bodies whole and full of ease begin to grow and flourish, they take your hand and guide you, slow footsteps now, I am here beside you.

2. Hands and, Dainty droplets, fingers on my thigh, tracing little flower buds that melt into my skin, Soaked, like orange peel in the sun on the patio, Where we are tangled becoming one.

morning sun 3. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been placing tealight candles in corners where you used to lie. She tells me that the scents of frangipani, vanilla and zinnia, Will rid me of your touch and sometimes in the morning light I feel them, soaking through skin and kissing my skin, softly.

4. She hated her freckles. Until he kissed each slowly and let them unfold before her into a ground for a garden looking through lingerie and showing her that there is always beauty.

5. I yearn for the winter to be over and spring to sing into my arms, raise them up to gently dance in the breeze like pollen on the wind, under my nose that definitely will make me itch and sneeze, but also kiss my shoulders and stomach as I lie under sunrise and sunset, waiting for my skin to turn pink and fill with life that is shaken from me in the cold. I am consistently dreaming of how warmth colours us.

WORDS BY SARAH PETERS AND ART BY ALEXANDRA BURNS

CREATIVE

MINCE MEAT FOR MAGPIES BY ALAINA DEAN

watch as the bus coughs black and bunny-hops back onto the road. Oliver is sitting in his ute on the other side of the street, looking on as I manhandle my two suitcases onto the bitumen. Dusk is falling, and my bags are heavy. I dawdle across the road. “Oliver!” He raises his hands, shrugs. I lose my grip on the handle of the larger suitcase and let it drop across the middle lines. “Help me!” He rolls his eyes and gets out of his vehicle. “God, you’re hopeless.” I leave the larger suitcase and take the little one to the ute. “No, I’m just weak.” Oliver picks up the suitcase from where I’ve left it in the middle of the road. He swings it casually by his side and tosses it into the tray. I struggle with the little one. “God, just get in the ute.” He takes the bag from me. I pass him my backpack. He throws it. The local radio is playing. I change it before Oliver folds himself into the driver’s seat. He changes it back without comment. “Did Mum leave a note?” “Yep.” “Can you read what it says?” “Nope.” Oliver drives us home, spinning out in the gravel and fishtailing up the driveway. The dogs bark from their kennels on the deck. We get out of the ute and Oliver walks towards the house. I stand beside the ute staring at my jumbled bags. Oliver stops on the lawn and exclaims again, “God!” He carries my bags inside. We lean over the island bench and decipher Mum’s handwriting: Water inside plants Mon, Thurs, Fri Wash school uniform Wed, Sun Water outside pot plants twice a week Take dogs for walk morning + night Cat gets wet food every 2nd night. Dry food other nights. No breakfast. And in Dad’s handwriting underneath: Mince meat for magpies. “I thought the magpie died?” Oliver makes himself a Milo. “It did. I found it drowned in the pool.” “How’d you know it was the magpie?”

Oliver shrugs as he stirs the Milo. “Only a pet magpie would drown in a pool.” He takes the Milo over to the fireplace where the grey cat is stretched asleep. He leaves the Milo tin open, the milk on the bench. I follow him and sink into an armchair. “What magpies is Dad feeding now?” Oliver looks at me over his glass. “All of them.” The next morning, Oliver stands in the kitchen in his school uniform, shaking a box of grey powder into a mixing bowl. “Protein powder? Bulking up?” He frowns. “No, it’s magpie mix.” “What’s magpie mix?” Oliver plunges his hands into the bowl and squelches the meat through his fingers. “I don’t know, Dad mixes it with the mince meat.” I make coffee as Oliver rolls the mince meat into spheres between his palms. “Keep the cat inside.” I scoop the complaining cat into my arms and cradle it like a baby. Oliver stands outside the kitchen door, throwing the mince meat balls out onto the lawn. One magpie appears, then two, three, swooping in on the easy breakfast. More magpies swoop from the sky until the lawn is dotted with them. Oliver throws the last ball and comes inside. “Are you serious?” I say, staring out at the magpies. “Yeah?” “That’s a lot of magpies. I mean, that’s way too many magpies.” I text Oliver to bring Indian home for dinner. Lentil curry + eggplant curry + naan + rice + whatever you want. Pls. He texts back, Which Indian place? Whichever is better of the two. I shut the shop a few minutes early and take the dogs for a walk when I get home. Archer barks and Mabel jiggles with excitement. A car comes careening up the dirt road, kicking up dust. I wait till it settles and walk home. Oliver is reheating the take-away container by container. “Why don’t you heat them all up at once?” Oliver slams the microwave door shut. “God, that’s not how microwaves work.” He presses start and the microwave whirrs. “It obviously takes longer for them to heat up that way.” “Okay. Do you want Coke?” “Yeah.”

ART BY MINNIE CHANTPAKPIMON

CREATIVE

I run across the lawn to the shed, ramming my hip against the door to get it open. I collect six cans from the shed fridge so I won’t have to come back for a while. I cradle the cold cans against my chest and pull the shed door shut behind me with a spare finger. Walking back across the lawn, a shiver goes down my spine and my thighs go tight with fear. I turn around, certain I am being watched. But it’s only Dad’s car and Oliver’s ute parked side by side. Somewhere down the paddock, a fox barks in a gully. The gum tree at the gate rattles its leaves. I dart back to the house, breathless. “NOOOOOO.” I pull out my earphones, turn towards the kitchen. “NOOOOOO.” I pause my music and save my essay. “Oliver?” I leave my laptop on the coffee table. “What’s wrong?” Oliver is standing in front of the open freezer, clutching a container of mince meat. “Did you buy this?” He waves the frozen meat at me. I take a step back. “No.” Oliver slams the container on the island bench. “God!” “What?” “It’s $4 mince. It’s so shit.” I pick up the mince in its home-brand packaging. The $4 is encased in a yellow star. “Why would Dad want me to eat shit mince?” The freezer starts to beep, alerting us to its open door. I search through the compartments and find another block of mince. The sticker is red and says $16. I slam it beside the $4 mince. “The cheap one is obviously for the magpies,” I say, putting it back in the freezer. “God!” I go back to my essay and Oliver makes himself a shepherd’s pie. The cat weaves itself around my legs as I make coffee. The coffee beans I brought with me from Melbourne are starting to run low. “Watch out,” I say to the cat, as I cut open a new carton of soy milk and get the dairy milk out of the fridge for Oliver’s coffee. “I’ll step on you.” The cat meows, offended, and goes to sit beside the door. “You can’t go outside, not until Oliver feeds the—” Outside the glass door is a neat row of magpies, staring in at me. I frown. The toaster pops. I look away from their beady glares and jolt in surprise. The windowsills are lined with magpies. Magpie after magpie after magpie. Even young ones, with their soft grey bellies. A big magpie on the windowsill closest to the kitchen sink pecks the glass once. I try to remember the last time we fed them.

“Oliver?” “What?” he calls from somewhere deeper in the house. “Have you been feeding the magpies?” Silence. “Oliver?” “No, have you?” He wanders into the kitchen, combing his wet hair. “What the heck?” I pass him his coffee. “I know. Can you feed them?” “There’s no mince defrosted. I’ll feed them tomorrow.” “Sure, okay.” We stand in the kitchen and drink coffee, trying to avoid eye contact with the magpies. Oliver shakes his head. “Nope, I’m going to drink this in my bedroom.” He shouts and immediately returns. “They’re watching from my bedroom window as well.” That night, while we are eating dinner, there is a scratching on the roof. “Possums?” I drink from my glass of water. We’ve run out of Coke. Oliver frowns. The scratching gets louder, like a thousand tiny feet scampering. “That’s not possums.” We both push our chairs out hastily and head outside. Oliver brings a torch. I fold my arms over my chest as my teeth start to chatter in the cold. Oliver shines the torch onto the roof. “God.” The roof is swarming with magpies, a mass of black and white and glints of beak. They ruffle their feathers under the torchlight. Oliver picks up a football he left on the lawn and tosses it onto the roof. It clangs on the corrugated iron but the magpies aren’t spooked. They stare down at us silently. “I’m Skyping Dad.” Oliver follows me inside and we spend 15 minutes attempting to find a strong enough Wi-Fi signal. Dad’s face blurs onto the screen. “Dad?” “Look where we are!” He flips his phone camera so we can see a pixelated image of two pints of Guinness on a bar. “Cool pub, Dad. So, Oliver forgot to feed the magpies—” The image of the beers drops out. We call again, but the internet isn’t strong enough. The scratching on the roof gets louder. Oliver takes the dogs for a walk in the morning. I defrost the packet of $4 mince in the microwave and make coffee. Oliver comes sprinting down the driveway, the dogs racing in front of him in a panic. He throws open the front door and the dogs skitter in around his feet. The cat hisses under the kitchen table as the dogs bark wildly.

ART BY MINNIE CHANTPAKPIMON

CREATIVE

Oliver has a line of blood trekking down the side of his face. “They were waiting for me at the gate.” “What, who were?” “The magpies.” I pass him a clean tea towel and he presses it against the cut on his forehead. I frown. His blonde hair is slowly turning red. I push him into a chair at the table and search through his hair. His scalp is covered in tiny cuts. “Oh shit, Ollie. They got you good.” I hastily mix the magpie powder in with the mince and ball it in the palm of my hands. Not daring to leave the safety of the house, I stand at the back door and lob them onto the lawn. The scratching on the roof ceases as the magpies descend on the mince. But the number of magpies has grown so substantially that there is barely a beakful for each bird. I shut the door. The magpies snap their heads around to watch me. I get ready for work, shutting the frosted bathroom window so the magpie on the windowsill can’t see me brush my teeth. Oliver paces the house, tapping on the windows and glass doors, but the magpies don’t budge. “How are you going to make it to the car?” he asks. I look at the car, parked on the other side of the lawn. “I’ll make a run for it.” “Here.” Oliver places his Akubra on my head. “And wear sunglasses so they can’t get at your eyes.” “Okay.” I collect the car keys and sunglasses. “You ready?” Oliver has his hand on the door handle. I nod. He opens the door and I dash outside into a whirlwind of feathers and beaks and scratching feet. A magpie flies straight at my chest and collides with a thump. I gasp in pain but manage to make it into the car. I look back at the house. Oliver is standing behind the glass door, his left hand raised in a forlorn wave. I turn the car on. All the magpies return to their positions staking out the house, except for one, which stands on my windscreen wipers. It cocks its head to the side and begins to peck. I panic and flip the wipers on. The magpie doesn’t budge. It rides up and down, up and down, its beak screeching against the glass like fingernails down a chalkboard. While I’m at work, Oliver calls Dad and Dad messages me. O says the magpies are bad. He wants to shoot to spook them off. Don’t let him. Okay, I reply. It would be like shooting at your siblings. I don’t respond, but I screenshot the conversation and send it to Oliver. He sends me a photo of his rifle lying on the kitchen table. Don’t. Too late.

When I get home I expect to see carnage, but the magpies are still circling the house and Oliver is pacing inside. “I shot into the sky all afternoon, but it didn’t spook them at all.” “You didn’t shoot at them?” “No, Dad loves them too much.” We cook dinner and I stare out the kitchen windows. The darkness shifts and moves, heavy with magpies. I heap mashed potato onto plates and turn the stovetop off. “Um, Alaina?” I turn from draining the peas. Oliver is pointing at the wood fired heater in the lounge room. The soot is stirring. “Is that a—” The magpie flaps its wings in the heater and knocks into the glass door. I drop the colander. Peas scatter across the kitchen floor. “How do we get it out of there without it killing us? How did it even get down the chimney?” With a flurry of feathers, another magpie drops out of the chimney into the fireplace. They both start bumping in sync against the glass. The handle to the heater rattles. I flick through the calendar on the bench. Three more days till Mum and Dad return. We won’t survive another three days if the magpies infiltrate the house. “I think we should leave.” Oliver nods. He his holding the potato masher tight in his fist. Another magpie is flapping in the fireplace. The handle is shaking. “Do you reckon we have time to pack some—” The heater door bursts open and the magpies reel out, spouting soot. Oliver and I scream. Oliver bats at the birds with the potato masher. We scramble towards the front door, arms folded over our heads, scattering peas. “The cat!” I glance towards the lounge where the cat is usually sprawled in the sun. “She’s outside!” Oliver yells back as he opens the front door. A wave of magpies swamps us. The air is alive with them. “C’mon!” Oliver grabs my hand and drags me across the deck. We run. I can hear him whistling for the dogs to follow. We sprint across the lawn. The cloud of magpies thins. Oliver checks both the cars but the keys are in the house in the coin bowl. I look back at the house—it is filled with birds, like an overpopulated aviary in a park. They are tearing apart the furniture, flying madly into the pendant lights. Somehow they’ve got the fridge door open and are tossing the food around. Three magpies are standing in the doorway, chests puffed out. The one in the middle snaps its beak. Once. Twice. Oliver and I keep running.

ART BY MINNIE CHANTPAKPIMON

NEXT WAVE

EVERYONE IS AN ARTS WRITER As part of the New Student Precinct Project, artist development platform Next Wave has been curating public art and programs at the Parkville campus. Through a series of installations, participatory programming and mentorship opportunities, the project seeks to amplify marginal voices, disrupt historical narratives and open the University’s pedagogy. Embracing disruption, as well as the transitional, forgotten and peripheral, Next Wave programming provides an opportunity for innovative thinking around the past, present and future of the site, as well as the way we live, think and learn as individuals and a community. The following are excerpts from Next Wave’s pilot arts writing mentorship program, Everyone is an arts writer. For access to full articles, please visit farragomagazine.com/nextwave.

An Orchestra of Forces By Ronlee Korren

Viewed separately, each frame depicts a moment where the pre-existing social landscape is either challenged or laid bare, prompting shifts in its underlying structures, assumptions and foundations. Viewed in succession, they represent the shaping of a collective history. In 1856, stonemasons working on Melbourne University’s Quadrangle marched in defiance of poor working conditions and unreasonably long hours. The University listened, and the notion of the eight-hour working day was born. Likewise, the backlash following the expulsion of Terry Stokes prompted a successful re-evaluation of archaic institutional values, drawing attention to issues of discrimination and inclusivity. The University is regenerated through its responsiveness to extraordinary feats of activism, collective mobilisation and positive social change. Image credit: Sam Wallman, A Student Rubbed Their Eyes, 2018. Photography by ReCreate

Playing with Power By Claire Bridge Placed on an external wall of the ERC Library at Parkville, Power/Play’s large vinyl billboard greets you with open arms and uterine glee on entry to the campus. At either side of the central banner are two light boxes with the text, “*which GIRLS” (at left) and “RULE THE WORLD” (to the right). The text references Beyoncé’s song ‘Run the World (Girls)’. The work invites questions: which girls? Who rules? Stroking the suffragette’s hair, a trans woman’s hand reaches in. Which women? Cis women, trans women, women of colour? Where is the image of Wurundjeri women, upon whose unceded land this artwork is installed? The question of who is excluded is powerfully evoked by Kelly who with surgical precision collages notions of power and privilege along with intersecting tensions in which we too may be complicit. Image credit: Deborah Kelly, Power/Play, 2018

Next Wave have more projects planned and invite all students to participate. To get involved, contact: nextwave@nextwave.org.au Next Wave and the University of Melbourne acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation as the traditional owners of this land. We pay our respect to Elders both past and present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

NEXT WAVE

Australians, all let us JUI-TSO-ERH-SSU By Janelle Koh

The booth is fashioned out of rusty corrugated iron. It sits in Mon Pop Gallery, a pop-up space on the fake-grass patio opposite the Melbourne Uni tram stop; an area students habitually ignore. Facetiously resembling an outhouse, the booth stands tall; a placard informs us this is an impermanent fixture, an installation by the Asian-Australian artist Siying Zhou. On the back a sign reads ‘Karaoke Bar for Our National Anthem’ in a hokey ‘oriental’ font, which conjures the memory of sweet and sour pork, over-floured and roughly fried. Resting on a wooden platform, the booth is wide enough for just one person to comfortably stand inside. I open the door, pulling on a golden tasselled rope that hangs where the doorknob should be. Red carpet is stapled to the floor, and cheap gold paper lines the walls. The place is cheaply reminiscent of a KTV lounge I once visited in Beijing, sans the smoke that gutted the place. A lone microphone hangs down from the ceiling, frozen in an eternal mic drop. The television screen, the centrepiece of every karaoke outing, is mounted on the wall. “Start in one minute!” the screen declares. I put on the pair of headphones hanging from the wall, and wait. Image credit: Siying Zhou, Rehearsal Karaoke Booth for Our National Anthem, 2018. Photography by ReCreate

Heart Imprint Brick By Amelia Walters Hidden at the heart of a university there is a collection of abandoned bricks. An interior microcosm of mortar and clay. Walking in dérive, we the trace fault lines of our history. Between psychogeographies and social ecologies, the heart imprint orients us in place and we wonder amongst ourselves. The personal becomes environmental. Here is eikos, an ethics of our everyday materials. The heart imprint brick has become gentle with age— houseless but homely. It is concrete poetry, softening surfaces and making rooms for new ideas. To dwell in this place is to be engraved by them. We are built besides ourselves. As the body becomes site, becomes place, the very contours of the body become a medium. We feel ourselves listen, hear ourselves touch. We step over the threshold, the heart imprint brick invites us in. Somewhere between nascence and nothingness, the heart imprint is beating. The brick continues its building. Image credit: Chas Manning and Daniel Kotsimbos, Heart Imprint Brick, 2018. Photography by ReCreate

DISMANTLE, UNSETTLE, DECOLONISE By Moorina Bonini

This year Next Wave and the University of Melbourne New Student Precinct produced a film and video program for Reconciliation Week. I worked with a small programming team to present a variety of First Nations artists’ and filmmakers’ voices, exploring issues ranging from historical and present day exploitation, dispossession, violence and intergenerational trauma; the ongoing legacies of colonial fantasies and stereotypes; and the struggle for sovereignty. Across the expanse of three video programs presented over two days, I felt proud. I was inspired by the authentic quality of the personal narratives and histories of each individual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artist—their works resonated in a way that was at once profound, playful and relatable. Image credit: Hannah Bronte, Umma’s Tongue–molten at 6000°, film still, 2017

ART BY WEN QIU

CREATIVE

PILLOW

BY MELISSA LAM

’m not a light sleeper, but something woke me in the middle of the night. It wasn’t something particular—like a sound or smell—but rather, a presence. Four digital numbers were the first thing I saw, bright red amongst the stark darkness. 03:00. I’m also not superstitious, but my mind told me it couldn’t have been a coincidence. I rubbed any remnant of slumber from my eyes and shifted my attention past the digital clock, to a large, weird shape standing at the centre of my bedroom. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that it was a person. “Do not be alarmed!” the figure hissed abruptly, arms outstretched. I was fucking alarmed alright. A high-pitched scream was hitched at my throat and I made some squeaky sound that went against any code of masculinity I practised. “It is okay boy, I am not here to do you harm,” the figure said again. It was cloaked in a thick robe and had an earnest voice; perhaps female—if it was human. I struggled to speak. I was blinking rapidly, breathing rapidly, opening and closing my mouth like a fish. “You know,” I whispered at last, after 10 seconds of selfassessment, “you don’t just stand in the middle of someone’s room in the dark, in a cloak.” I did another self-assessment, concluded that I wasn’t psychotic. The figure’s stance slumped and it said, “I’m sorry.” “You don’t just do that!” I snapped, slowly getting up. “What the fuck are you?” Silence. The cloaked figure clasped its palms together. Its head bobbed this way and that in silent contemplation. I think I could have died from a heart attack. When it did speak again, it said, “May I please sit down? I am a bit worn out from all the bops.” I didn’t ask what the hell a bop was. Is this what usually happens? Some creepy person appears in your bedroom at three in the morning and you give it the pleasure of taking a seat? Does it slaughter you afterwards? I had no idea what was happening, but for some reason, I found myself nodding. Not politely, but rather hysterically. “Yes. Yes! Please sit—take a seat dude,” I rambled. I pulled my cotton pillow from underneath me and chucked it at the cloaked figure. “Make yourself comfortable.” It rested the fluffy thing on the ground, patted it thrice and then in a huff, planted its butt down with a large exhale. “Thank you,” it sighed. “Now, do not be shaken by what I am about to tell you.”

“Okay,” I replied, completely shaken. “I am,” the figure drawled out, crafting as much anticipation as it could, “your Fairy Godmother.” Silence. “Okay,” I said again. I was going to throw up. I reached over to my bedside table and swiftly flipped the switch of my lamp, illuminating my room in warm, orange light. But holy gods. Sitting in the centre of my room in a sparkling cobalt robe and curls of silver hair framing her face was indeed my— “Fairy Godmother?” I stuttered. Everything seemed out of place. The walls of my room were embellished by NBA posters, my desk a discombobulated shamble of games and consoles and then... my floor accompanied by a shimmering old fairy. “Why... why do I have a Fairy Godmother?” She had a kind smile with wrinkles in the corner of her eyes. A bit like my grandma but more sparkly. “Well Jords,” she began, “it is Jords, isn’t it?” “Jordan,” I replied robotically. “Something magnificent is about to happen in your life, Jordan! Think of me as the harbinger.” “Like what? I shall go to the fucking ball?” The fairy gave me a ludicrous look, ironically. “The ball?” she mockingly reiterated. “That is quite lame.” Lame? “Well this was quite the shabby introduction,” my Fairy Godmother stated, shifting on my pillow. “I shall further inform you tomorrow night. Same time?” I swept my feet to the edge of my bed and glared at her. “Wait. You can’t just come in here and just leave—” The fairy reached into the depths of her cloak—I retracted in fear—but she only pulled out a stick, a wand. “Wait!” I exclaimed. “Bibbity Bop!” With a puff of blue mist and golden twinkling dust, my Fairy Godmother vanished into thin air with everything that was with her, leaving behind the scent of lavender. Apart from the swirls of majestic fog, my room was left the same as it was before the clock hit three in the morning. With calm and steady breaths, I slowly laid my head back down onto the mattress, swearing violently in my head. The only indication that this peculiar encounter truly occurred was that my pillow was gone.

ART BY LAUREN HUNTER

CREATIVE

Ionian cup 570–550 BCE

BY MATTHEW LUCAS WOJCZYS

Life of Art

For Alan Marshall BY MATTHEW LUCAS WOJCZYS Standing on a plinth simply wouldn’t do. Rooted at the library doors, a book to your chest, you greet readers with conversation in a voice that could not be sculpted. Bronze is a difficult medium. I recognise your gumnut eyes, patina sleeves rolled to the elbow, and one trouser leg pinned at the point of amputation. You rest your weight on a crutch and arch your neck in contrapposto – the illusion of movement that gives you life like presence. There is no warmth to your skin. But when people shake your hand, then heat lingers, and your fingers branch toward the entrance. Like a plant can sense light and water, your body strains for stimulus, the rustling grain of ideas.

I would drink from it without second thought, grasp its even arms like any plastic jug, spill it on a rug overwrought with vines and diamonds. I would cleanse it like a baby in the sink, soap and suds scrubbing the grime and wine, honey and oil, goat’s blood left to boil over a heretic’s pot. I’d bring your mouth to my mouth and taste the iron-laced clay. But I still wouldn’t think how many hands have held you or how long you waited to be unearthed and held again.

Inside, I stroll between rows of dead names until I find yours. I crease the novel’s spine and smell mummified skin, a symptom contracted from long confinement to shelves. I press my thumb on stiff corners and let the pages run, a warm-up before the marathon. I leaf through years of your life, reading how polio warped your leg like wet paper, how your spirit learned to swim, how a limb is not the worst thing to lose. I sit reading for so long that my legs tingle with guilt, and the arms of the chair become my arms. For a moment I feel the stiffness in your back. My hands are as cold as bronze. My eyes hurt from straining to read. I know why you keep that book close to your heart, it makes you feel alive again.

ART BY LAUREN HUNTER

FLASH FICTION PROMPT EIGHT: ENDINGS. THIS IS THE END. WE LOVE AND MISS YOU ALREADY. 22/11/17 his story ends with a girl whose hair is too long for her liking. Seven new songs, unwashed swimmers, and a pair of luggage tags for the flight home tomorrow. She has a lump in her throat that’s been there for two months. Everything’s tasted bitter since September. She forgets the way Melbourne turns cold, tries to grow without her sisters’ help. Nineteen has been a difficult age. This year has been a difficult year. She should wash those swimmers. In a souvenir-shop snow globe, in which she sees herself dancing amongst the debris, she is almost happy. BY AMANDA TAN

HALF LIFE

I dream decay of the pot plant by the window.

Asymmetrical sleeps, sweating by degrees. Multi-resistant, translucent leaves. Green again by morning.

BY LUKE MACARONAS

clutch my navel showing my pale coloured skin. In a crowd amongst my friends, people looked for winners with their hands. Many passed me, hesitant to choose me. Preferring others, who were firmer and smoother; out casting me who was weaker hence lower. Some say I was too thick- skinned, others say I was not full coloured enough. Although in the same basket from the same mother, the colour of my skin was judged as if I was from another. Because of my looks, assumptions were made and I was forsaken to a world of pain. BY LI SHAN

construction auto-destruct l’edifice won’t stay up si tu peut pas le réparer run on empty accelerate construction auto-destruct insomnie et sans espoir when you wake up accelerate run on empty detonate

ADJUSTMENT

BY CAROLYN HUANE

You’re a ghost A heart forgotten A nightmare in a dreamless night A whisper in a deaf ear A scratch on my skin A dig in my flesh A pain that I relive Each time I think of you BY PRACHI TYAGI ENDINGS orp clicked the giant red button on his remote reading “MASS DESTRUCTION”. From his spaceship he watched Earth blow up. A few couches floated off into space, a confused dog on one of them. Finally! Zorp had the best real estate property in all of the galaxy. He would make a new planet, a pink planet with much better couches and dogs. And dogs on couches. And perhaps, if he deemed suitable, couches on dogs. An angry man with a briefcase floated by, waving his fist in fury. Zorp thought, Humans are so fickle. Their bagels aren’t buttered and they scream at the waiter. But, earth detonates and they still manage to hold onto their briefcases. BY MEG WORRELL

BITTER END Bam! Bam! Really? Impending doom isn’t enough to stall girl scouts? Nick? You in there? Open up! Never mind. I’ll take the scouts. Come on man, let me in! Not gonna happen, Trevor. It’s hot as balls out here! Can’t imagine why. Not like there’s a scorching asteroid approaching… Nick, I ain’t playing around! Yours is the only bunker for miles. Let me in or I swear I’ll— What’s that? I can’t hear you over the sound of the world ending! Nick? Just—oh god! It’s coming—aaaaah! Let’s see you steal my H2B again, prick. Boom! BY THARIDI WALIMUNIGE

WHERE WAS I AND WHO WERE YOU (REALLY)? There are gaps in my night that you make me have to fill. There are holes in my story that you force me to recall. It’s a week later, And I’m writhing in these empty spaces. BY JEMMA GRAY

ART BY ILSA HARUN

SARAH PETERS, LUCY WILLIAMS AND STEPHANIE ZHANG PRESENT...

FOR AND AGAINST: FARRAGO

FOR

ven though the media space door is consistently locked and heavy, you love being in there! There’s something about Farrago and the spaces that is just so homely! You can always find spare copies of the magazine in the piles of boxes in the media space, or sometimes in the Union House loading bay, overflowing like a beautiful kingdom. The best bit about all these spare magazines is you no longer have to buy Christmas presents or toilet paper! Farrago prints on one of the best recycled papers you can find! Everything is so welcoming, like the Union House asbestos or the leftover wine in the portable fridge—it’s there to share! From the first week of student elections—when the editors bound up to you with tiny prints, guiding you to doors, and knowing to keep ensuring you’ve voted—all the way to the incredible community created by the four Radio Fodder listeners, you’re never alone when you’re with Farrago. Even when the media space door isn’t open, other pathways are! Farrago gives you opportunities for alcoholism, a reason to finally subscribe to The Australian (so you can read their paywalled article on edition four’s satirical kill list). Not to mention all those books we’re supposed to review, and shows we know nothing about, which we get to see! We also love seeing how diverse the magazine is. The presence at Burnley and the VCA is huge and increasing, just like the representation of colour among the editors this year! (Lucy and Sarah, personally, would like to express excitement for next year’s editors, Ruby Perryman, Steph Zhang, Katie Doherty and Carolyn Huane in particular.) Then there’s the editors themselves. Where would we be without them? Without Jesse’s relevant masculine life advice, and his assurance that he cares for the magazine’s feeling and vibe, working only when he is in the mood and not to pending deadlines. Then there’s Ashleigh who is wonderful, pocket-sized and portable and easy to get home after a night of drinking. Or Esther who is always there to protect us with a knife in her name and her fondness for using steak knives as swords in her childhood. And where would we be without Monique, who motivates us to look after our health as she goes missing for hours as she walks and swims Newcastle. Where would we be without student media?

AGAINST

veryone knows that Farrago really isn’t that great. We mean, you can’t marry all four of the editors at once, so what’s the point really? And each of them seems to have their own individual flaws that shine throughout the entirety of the magazine. Take Ashleigh for instance—she does TOO MUCH with the magazine’s campus section. We can’t handle being informed anymore. This is a loss of ignorance. Monique also spends too much time on the magazine—her devotion as graphics editor to this final edition meant that, last time we were with her, we were denied time to spend with her loving personality. There’s just too much thought going into this, too much content for us to articulate. Too much positivity. That’s right, Esther is always looking incredible, and her sense of fashion makes all our outfits look subpar. And combined with Jesse’s life advice and body confidence, we feel there’s way too much wholesome activity happening. Is this even reflective of the real world? And we haven’t even gone into how Farrago and its editors interact with others. Have you seen the way that they piss off Andrew Bolt and his tiny helpless white brain, the victim of reverse racism? Or how they failed to represent us on the aforementioned satirical kill list? We hate this idea of a platform of expression that is in fact open to all students— we’d rather only we could express our views. What sort of magazine is this? Farrago has a long way to go. We know that you’re thinking. “But there’s so much love in media.” But consistently it hits the wrong places. It’s love that is unfair, like the fact that Monique is more likely to marry Harry Styles than any of us, or how in 2019 there won’t be an office where we can visit all four of them at once. They’re too emotionally stable to have different crushes each week and we can’t handle that. Farrago often means that we’re roped into lifestyles of procrastinating from our studies with other opportunities like writing, editing and creating. These opportunities seem plentiful and weigh on us, like how the editors asked us to write these pieces days before they were due, just because we’re friends. Farrago and its worth has gone as far as taking a group of us to Newcastle for the National Young Writers’ Festival, and we’re not sure it’s coming back.

ART BY DAVID ZELEZNIKOW-JOHNSTON

ART BY

87 ART BY CAROLYN HUANE

UMSU and the media office are located in the city of Melbourne, on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations. We pay our respects to their eldersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;past, present and emergingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and acknowledge that the land we are on was stolen and sovereignty was never ceded.

ART BY