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cw/ = Content Warning
CONTENTS
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58
38
50
4/ 6/ 10/ 12/ 14/
Thank you! News in Brief UMSU Election Results Academic Freedom to Hate cw/ transphobia Fate of refugee activists’ “Divest from Detention” campaign against Melbourne University unclear cw/ criminal enforcement, violence
and death
15/ 16/ 18/
Stalls for All Tutorial Torture Office Bearer Reports
23/ M—— 26/ Living Well When You’re Unwell 27/ Kiss and Tell 31/ Regulating Language 32/ All that Glitters is not Gold 34/ Diaspora Dilemmas 35/ Tooti Fruity 38/ You Look so Exotic cw/ explores racism, misogyny and fetishisation
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We’re all Worthy cw/ ableism, transphobia Double Take cw/ mentions of suicide, abusive behaviour
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28/ 45/ 46/
Planting Progress Flash Fiction Paint to Poetry cw/ alludes to self-harm, inexplicit
references to deaths and violence against women
49/ 114.7°C 50/ Meditation 51/ Cooking Words 52/ A Thing with Feathers 56/ The Fairytale Gazette 57/ Woof 59/ R ‘n’ R 65/ Gums 65/ The Open Night 66/ See You Later, Space Cowboy 70/ 3rd Person 72/ Is my nature a mother that holds me?
cw/ themes of self-harm, mental and physical illness,
intergenerational sexual shame
76/ 80/
The Remarkable Quests of Raddish and Quill For and Against
COVER ART BY LUCY WILLIAMS /
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The Farrago Team Editors Carolyn Huane Ruby Perryman Stephanie Zhang Contributors Pavani Ambagahawattha Katherine Anastasatos Luoyang Chen Marcie Di Bartolomeo Vanessa Jo Di Natale W.D. Farnsworth Jamisyn Gleeson Ailish Hallinan Emma Hardy Thirangie Jayatilake Emily Johnson Stephanie Kee Tyler McRae Luke Patitsas Jemma Payne Sonja Repetti Jasmine Rhodes Chelsea Rozario Shubhi Saini Katherine Scott Naomi Sepiso Annette Syahlani Finley Tobin Mark Yin Jiamin (Carmen) Zheng Subeditors Emma Hardy Ella Patrick Sophie Wallace Bella Ruskin Clare Bullard Ruby Adams Jessica Chen 4
Claire Thao Duong Nick Fleming Asher Harrington Tiia Kelly Wing Kuang Finbar MacDonald Amber Meyer Sarah Peters Chiara Situmorang Carly Stone Greer Sutherland Alison Tealby Teresa Lin Tharidi Walimunige Charlotte Waters Caitlin Wilson Freyja Wright Catron Graphics Jennifer Luki Andreany Alexandra Burns Cathy Chen Bethany Cherry Van Ahn Chu Vicky Hope Ash J Hogan Carolyn Huane Simran Kaur Isaac Langford Peijing Li Reann Lin Vineetha Liz Babu Ly Luong Reece Moir Amani Nasarudin Stephanie Nestor Monique O’Rafferty Miranda Park Ruby Perryman Anjana Ram
ART BY RUBY PERRYMAN
Morgan-Lee Snell Charanja Thavendran Sukanya Varape Esme Wang Tiffany Widjaja Lucy Williams Timothy Wood Raymond Wu Yushi Wu Yi Xia Muchen Yan Meerna Yousif Lizzy Yu Stephanie Zhang Farrago is the student magazine of
Columnists Conor Clements Creative Literature and Writing Society (CLAWS) Jocelyn Deane Alison Ford Kaavya Jha Sarah Peters Veera Ramayah Luke Rotella A’bidah Zaid Shirbeeni Iris Shuttleworth Lou Winslow Social Media Ashleigh Hastings Sarah Peters Cover Lucy Williams
the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), produced by the media department. Farrago is published by the general secretary of UMSU, Reece Moir. The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of UMSU. the printers or the editors. Farrago is printed by Printgraphics, care of Quigel Nirk. 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.
Editorial
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e acknowledge Farrago is created on land that always has and always will belong to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. This land is stolen and sovereignty was never ceded, and no acknowledgement is enough to give it back. We pay respect to elders past, present and emerging, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people who have been sharing stories and making art longer than anyone in the world. We thank readers for picking up our magazine and listening to what we have to say, and urge you to actively seek out, and listen to, the people whose land you exist on too. This is our last edition? God, we genuinely can’t believe how fast the year has gone by. It honestly feels like we were elected only a couple of months ago, and yet here we are about to hand over to your incredible 2020 editorial team: Bethany Cherry, Amber Meyer, Sarah Peters and Tharidi Walimunige. Farrago is in safe hands with these angels, we can’t wait to see what fresh directions they take it in! We have a lot of feelings about our terms ending and not a lot of space on this page, but here’s the gist: Ruby—Where do I even start? Being an editor has been the most fucking stressful and rewarding experience of my life so far. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to read the myriad of vastly different voices coming out of our student body. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who submitted creative writing to Farrago and Above Water this year—your words will stay with me forever. And so many hugs and thanks to my amazing co-editors, subediting team and columnists. Steph—What a fucking year—I can barely remember my first day on the job because I’ve grown and learnt so much. What an experience it has been to edit and publish your work, and I have an infinite amount of gratitude that I cannot even begin to describe. Thank you to my co-editors for everything everything everything; thank you to my news team for the dedication and determination you have shown (and for having a rant with me in the office once in a while); thank you to all of the people of colour who have stepped up and bravely put your work forward and made the collective a more colourful place. And thank you so much to every single one of you who have written and read and dedicated time to this incredible publication. Caro—This year has been a whirlwind—looking through editions one to seven this year I’m blown away by the outstanding artists I’ve had the joy of working with. An insane amount of talent and dedication is here on the pages of Farrago and I’m bursting with pride for what we’ve achieved together. This role is chaotic but you, the readers, my fantastic graphic contributors and my crazy, supportive, creative co-editors have made this an incredible experience. Student media is a force to be reckoned with and I urge you to throw yourself in! There’s so much to learn and we are stronger for hosting a diversity of voices. Take a look at the back page for details on getting involved next year! (Also follow me on Instagram for future shenanigans @carolynhuane) xo In our final news section, read about what academic freedom means for trans people on campus on page 12, or dive into Sonja Repetti’s rant about tutorials on page 16. And in nonfic, check out Emma Hardy’s piece about her experience dating men for money on page 24, and Chelsea Rozario’s breakdown of why it is really not okay to describe someone as ‘exotic’ on page 40. As always, this edition is absolutely bursting with brilliant pieces of creative writing. Head to page 50 to read Luoyang Chen’s fun poetry spread about Meditation and Cooking Words, and to page 59 to be lulled into another state of meditation by Naomi Sepiso’s gorgeous piece ‘R ‘n’ R’. Equally as brilliant as the words in the creative section are the artworks accompanying them—especially Esme Wang’s wild swirly whirly piece on page 48 and Yushi Wu’s adorable rambutans on page 37. 2019 has been one hell of a journey, and we’re so grateful for the experience and everyone who has been a part of it. We love you to the moon and back. Until we meet again, Ruby, Steph and Caro PHOTOGRAPHY BY ISAAC LANGFORD
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COLLECTIVE
Thank you! from Caro, Ruby and Steph
Subbies Our creative, news and nonfiction subeditors are the backbone of the words in Farrago, who mould everything into shape for print. They work carefully and kindly with writers of all sorts of lived experiences to get to the core of what they want to say, and help them say it clearly. Feedback from subeditors is instrumental in the blossoming of our collective. We truly can’t thank you enough for your hard work this year.
Campus Reporters Thank you for coming to meetings and having a yarn, and helping tell important stories that expose wrongdoing and hold the University, the Union and other institutions accountable. You’ve all been phenomenal in pursuing the truth and have broken so many consequential stories this year. We know you’ll be making waves in the future.
Graphic Contributors Thank—and I cannot stress this enough—you. Our hearts are full of appreciation for the many hours that go into your illustrations. The role of a graphic contributor is unique and we recognise the time, energy and creativity you put into the work you do for Farrago and how critical it
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY REECE MOIR
is to the magazine, and how loved your art is by students. Know your worth monetarily and otherwise—the world needs artists!
Columnists Thank you to the people who have dedicated more time to writing and making art for the magazine than anyone else—our amazing columnists who produce work for us every edition. All of our 2019 columns were exciting in such different ways, and we’re so sad to see the final installments of your stories. But this isn’t the end, we can’t wait to see what you all do next!
Media Department Teams Thank you to our Radio Fodder hosts and team, the satire team, the photography team, the video team, and of course, our social media team. You make up a huge part of the media collective, and your ideas, enthusiasm and the content you produce are what makes our department and space so lively. So thanks for hanging out with us all year.
Coordinators and Managers Endless thank yous to our Radio Fodder station manager, Ed Pitt; our photography coordinators Alain Nguyen
and Jocelyn Deane; our video team managers Kristie Thai and Lucy Williams; our satire coordinators James Gordon and Kaavya Jha; and our event coordinator Catriona (Tree) Smith, and Elinor Mills for helping Tree out with events at the start of the year. Having you guys run our array of teams really lightens our load and keeps us going, so we can’t thank you enough for giving us your time.
councillor Conor for helping us access money to pay for important things like printing and events, for always knowing the ins and outs of what’s happening within the Union, and for keeping our whiteboard filled with ridiculous quotes. We nominate Conor Day for best students’ council representative.
Ashleigh Hastings and Sarah Peters
Thank you to Sarah for being patient with us and helping solve all of our problems! Thank you so much for chasing up our chaotic invoices, and putting up with inquorate councils where we couldn’t pass our money.
Thank you so much to our social media coordinators Ash and Sarah, two actual angels, who kept our online presence beautiful and active all year. We’re so sorry it always takes us so long to upload pieces to the website after we launch an edition—your rigorous schedule keeps us in check. A big thanks to Sachetha Bamunusinghe too for helping Ash out with the socials in semester one.
Above Water Team A massive thank you and hug to Amber Meyer for being my Above Water editorial assistant, an admin angel, who made sure the competition ran smoothly and fairly. And more hugs for Sarah Peters for keeping the Above Water socials afloat. Thank you to our 2019 judges and to everyone who submitted their precious works, I’m so grateful to have been able to put the anthology together this year.
Sarah Black
Nour Altoukhi and Tharidi Walimunige Thank you Nour and Tharidi for facilitating our fortnightly collectives for our ever-growing community of People of Colour within the media collective. You have helped make this space more inclusive and we’re so grateful for the work you have put into this.
Contributors Thank you so so much to everyone who has ever submitted work to Farrago, the magazine exists for and by you! Thank you for trusting us with your words and art, we hope we treated them well.
Election Coverage Team
Readers
To the Federal Election team who worked tirelessly throughout April and May to pull together 15 remarkable pieces of multimedia reporting, including a two-hour live show: thank you thank you thank you. Thank you especially to all of you who dedicated your Saturday night to our show: thank you to our technical manager Jesse Paris-Jourdan, our single-man data team Ed Pitt. Thank you to our results announcers, the ever-authoritative Jasper MacCuspie and the cutest Alison Ford; thank you to our hosts Kaavya Jha, Alain Nguyen and Annie Jiang. Thank you Megan Hanrahan for operating the cameras, and Lucy Turton and Angus Thomson for keeping our Twitter followers entertained. And thank you to all of our amazing panelists for throwing in your two cents, as well as Martin Ditmann for creating Very Pretty Graphics—we couldn’t have done it without any one of you.
Thank you to the people whose very existence is why we do what we do—our readers. Thanks for letting us experiment and have fun with Farrago this year. We hope you enjoyed what we put out, and that you continue flipping through for years to come.
Nigel Quirk and the Printgraphics Team
Thank you to all of the past editors of Farrago who have laid the groundwork for our publications and department throughout the years, and without the guidance of whom we would have had no idea what we were doing. A special shout out to 2018 editors Moni, Esther, Ash and Jesse for being the best parents.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to our bald guardian angel Nigel Quirk and his team at printgraphics for putting up with our tardiness, and ensuring our babies come out looking lovely every print cycle. Farrago and Above Water have been using Printgraphics for many moons and have no idea what our publications would be without them. The votes are in, and the editorial team have voted Nige The Nicest Man in the Universe.
Conor Day The biggest thank you to our incredibly dedicated students’
Collective Thank you so much to everyone who’s gotten involved with the media department in any way this year, whether that be helping us proofread the mag, hanging out at our events, or even just studying up in the media space and keeping us company. It’s been a pleasure to have you around!
Our Predecessors
Friends and Family And last but definitely not least, thank you to the people around us who love us and who helped guide us through various stress-related breakdowns throughout this absolute rollercoaster of a year. We couldn’t have stayed sane without your care and support.
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TAG CAMPUS
Content Warning:
NEWS IN BRIEF THE SPOT
The Spot’s Copland Theatre has closed due to maintenance issues in early October. Classes have been moved to alternative venues and it is expected to stay closed for the remainder of the semester.
RED FLAGS The 4Corners episode on 14 October about Chinese interference in Australian universities has drawn criticisms from students and staff of the University of Sydney. The program gave prominance to claims that participation of Chinese students in student politics would be a “gateway for Chinese Communist Party influence on campus”. USyd students and staff called the program “onesided” and “hawkish”. For more on this, see Honi Soit’s coverage.
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TIMETABLING CHANGES
STUDENT LIFE
The University of Melbourne is introducing a new timetabling system that will commence 11 November 2019. Departing from the “first come, first serve” system, registering for classes will be preference-based. This implementation comes after complaints from students about the stress and frustration of the previous system.
In August, the University of Melbourne has appointed Professor Kerri-Lee Krause as Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Student Life. Her role will commence in December.
The system, myTimetable, is currently used by RMIT.
O-WEEK CHANGES
Starting in 2020, the University will be holding Commencement Ceremonies to welcome undergraduate students during O-Week. UMSU activities like Carnival day and Clubs day will be moved accordingly.
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS In August, the University proposed changes to the Special Consideration process, decreasing accessibility in a way that UMSU President Molly Willmott describes as “draconian”. After a survey process, UMSU is submitting feedback to University Policy consultations against the proposed changes. They will be discussed at the December Academic Board meeting.
NEW CONSTITUTION, WHO DIS? The new UMSU Constitution, drafted through the Renew Our UMSU process, has been passed at a Special General Meeting on 17 September. Changes include sitting fees for Students’ Council members, affirmative action for people of colour in the media office, and disciplinary procedures for representatives failing to fulfil obligations. Negotiations between UMSU and UMSU International are in process due to ongoing concerns about changes to UMSU International due to the new constitution. The two bodies have entered an agreement to ensure international student voices are respected during htis process.
CLIMATE EMERGENCY VOTED DOWN
EXTINCTION REBELLION DISRUPTS THE CBD
Tuesday 15 October: Greens MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt brought to Parliament a motion to declare a climate emergency. Bandt was supported by Labor and the crossbench, but was ultimately voted down. Bandt said, “Nothing is more urgent than acting when people’s lives and livelihoods are under threat.” Federal Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor described the motion as an “absolutely empty gesture”, and that it was ignoring the practical needs of every day Australians. Two days later, a record-breaking parliamentary petition was submitted to Parliament. Petition “Declare a Climate Emergency” had over 370,000 signatures—three times more than the previous record on a petition calling to axe the tampon tax. As an official parliamentary petition, it theoretically carries more weight, but it is unclear whether it will have the same success as the petition against the tampon tax.
October 7 kicked off a week of protests by Extinction Rebellion (XR), named the Spring Rebellion. An estimated 5000 people participated, and protestors camped in Carlton Gardens all week, alongside 60 other cities globally in non-violent disruptive action aimed to spur governments into action. The City of Melbourne did not issue permits for these protests. A number of XR protestors were arrested following traffic blockades during peak hour commutes. Bail conditions set for activists, including those in Sydney, ban them from “going near” or contacting other XR members. This has resulted calls to review current protest laws, with critics claiming they infringe on freedom of speech and freedom of association. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews criticised the action, and a number of civilians have spoken out against the disruptions carried out during the Spring Rebellion week.
/ ART BY SOMEONE SOMEONE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LY LUONG
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SEED OF ORIGIN BY SUKANYA VARAPE
Has something happened on campus that’s made you mad? Did you hear about something dodgy? Or just have a story you think Farrago readers should know about? We want to bring you the best news possible. Let us know if you see or hear something you feel we should look into by emailing us at editors@farragomagazine.com. Confidentiality will always be upheld. Don’t be afraid to speak up.
LITTLE THINGS BY PEIJING LI
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NEWS
DISCLAIMER / Finley Tobin ran unsuccessfully with the Independent Media ticket for a general representative seat on Students’ Council in this election.
Stand Up for your new student representatives by Finley Tobin
T
he 2019 University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) annual elections are wrapped up, with long-standing ticket Stand Up! recording a landslide victory. Hannah Buchan and Jack Buksh led the way for Stand Up!, winning the positions of President and General Secretary, respectively. The ticket claimed a raft of Office Bearer (OB) positions that they did not hold in 2019, including Environment (Olivia Sullivan and Sophie Kerrigan), People of Colour (Gurpreet Singh and Nicole Nabbout), Clubs & Societies (Trianna Valdes and Jordan Di Natale), and Welfare (Declan Kerger and Natasha Guglielmino). Guglielmino will serve a second term as Welfare OB under a new ticket, having joined Stand Up! after the dissolution of ticket More! earlier in the year. Stand Up! also retained their 2019 offices, with Charlotte Fouhy and Charlie Joyce re-elected as Education Public OBs, while the Education Academic office was secured by Georgia Walton Briggs and Joshua Munro. Aria Sunga was also elected for a second term and will return as Women’s OB in 2020 alongside Naomi Smith. New ticket Pride. In [Y]our Collectives (Pride for short) did not contest major positions such as President, General Secretary, and the Welfare and Education offices, instead focusing on collectives, including autonomous departments and the Environment office. In its inaugural election, Pride secured the Queer office (Ciara O’Sullivan and A’bidah Zaid), as well as the Disabilities (Hue Man Dang and Srishti Chatterjee) and Creative Arts (Emily White and Olivia Bell) offices. The Disabilities office was one of the most closely contested, with Stand Up!’s Lucy Birch missing out on a second term by 20 primary votes. The People of Colour office was even closer, with Pride losing out to Stand Up! by only seven primary votes. Just Clubs. Just Activities. will hold the Activities office in 2020, represented by Hayley Stanford and India Pinkney. At the Southbank campus, Verity Crane and Hayden Williams will represent Stand Up! as Campus Coordinators, while 12
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LY LUONG
independent Lily Ekins—who was Campus Coordinator this year—will be the Activities and Events Coordinator. Independent Media’s Amber Meyer, Sarah Peters, Tharidi Walimunige and Bethany Cherry were elected unopposed into the Media office, while independent Kaitlyn Hammond was also elected unopposed as the Burnley Campus Coordinator. On Students’ Council, UMSU’s governing board, Stand Up! achieved a supermajority, winning 12 seats out of the available 21. Officially, they won 10 seats, but that ignores a deal between Stand Up! and Pride enabling Stand Up!’s Molly Willmott and Joshua Bruni to run for council with Pride. In return, Stand Up! did not contest the Queer and Creative Arts offices. Six Pride candidates were elected to the council, though the ticket will effectively have four councillors as a result of the deal. Left Action and Just Clubs. Just Activities. each earned two spots on Students’ Council. When the final council seats were being decided, affirmative action (AA) measures were invoked to ensure that the election complied with UMSU regulations, which stipulate that at least eight councillors must be women. This is the first time that AA has been applied for Students’ Council in over a decade, Returning Officer (RO) Stephen Luntz confirmed. Each year, delegates are also elected to attend the National Union of Students National Conference (NatCon). The National Union of Students (NUS) is the peak representative body for Australian students, advocating for accessible and equitable education across the nation. Stand Up! successfully elected four delegates to attend NatCon, and a further two delegates who ran under Pride, owing to another deal between the tickets. The remaining NUS delegate was elected by Left Action. The Burnley Campus Committee, along with the Indigenous Committee, Indigenous OBs, and Indigenous Representative on Students’ Council “did not get any nominations by the deadline for the main election,” Luntz said. Nominees for both the Burnley and Indigenous Committees have
since been elected unopposed, while the two remaining positions—Indigenous OBs, and Indigenous Representative on Students’ Council—will be decided in a by-election from October 21–23. The 2977 votes cast in this election is the lowest since 2015, representing a drop of nearly one fifth (17.7 per cent) of the 3619 votes recorded last year. This means that only 5.6 per cent of the student population voted—more than three per cent less than the 8.9 per cent who voted in 2018. Luntz attributed the lower voter turnout to the fact that “most prominent positions were not heavily contested”, leading to a smaller number of campaigners, and therefore less traffic at polling booths. The dissolution of More!—which has featured prominently in UMSU elections since 2016—was a factor in the lack of competition for some positions. After it dissolved, some members joined Stand Up!, while others formed new tickets such as Pride. in [Y]our Collectives and Just Clubs. Just Activities., which did not contest major positions such as President and General Secretary. 2019 has been marked by an uncommon number of resignations, with OBs from seven offices—Activities, Disabilities, Education Academic, Education Public, Indigenous, Media, and Queer—stepping down before the end of their term. Hannah Buchan told Farrago that in 2020, she would like to foster “a collaborative, effective, and visible Union”. “This Union needs to collectivise more and engage in what collectivism really means—bringing the student body together to fight for an issue,” she said. For example, “When the University continues to harm students and put them behind profits and prestige, we need to have a strong grassroots voice fighting against this,” Buchan said. Her term “will be the start of a new decade, and with the move to the new student precinct soon, a new era for our Union.” With engagement in student politics showing few signs of increasing, bringing the student body together may be easier said than done. 13
NEWS
CONTENT WARNING / transphobia
Academic Freedom to Hate by Emily Johnson and Stephanie Zhang
O
n a chilly August night, two sides of a debate that has been simmering for decades clash on the sidewalk outside an event hosted by opponents of legislation that would allow transgender people to change the sex marker on their birth certificates without medical intervention. No fists were thrown, but the underlying threat of violence perceived by both sides left them shaken. The combatants faded into the night, and by the next morning it was business as usual at the University of Melbourne, where the event was hosted. Business as usual for trans academics like Michelle McNamara, an Enterprise Fellow for the School of Biosciences, means working at an institution that employs people who deny her identity. The University defends the employment of these academics and their right to express their views. “The University must be a place for the exchange and challenge of knowledge and ideas, undertaken with a shared respect for competing points of view,” Vice Chancellor Duncan Maskell says. But, should academic freedom of speech override the
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ART BY CAROLYN HUANE
right of students and staff to feel safe on campus? On one side sits the University of Melbourne and select members of its faculty. On the other, a litany of trans, gender-nonconforming (GNC) and ally students and staff. For Maskell, “A commitment to the rights of LGBTQI people and a commitment to freedom of expression are not automatically in conflict, unless that expression takes the form of bullying, violence, or attempts to suppress the rights of others to speak.” This was the University’s defence for allowing the Future of Sex-Based Rights, the event held on 8 August in the Sidney Myer Asia Centre’s Carrillo Gantner Theatre, to proceed. “The response from the faculty felt like a personal ‘fuck you’,” says Priya, a trans person of colour. They, along with Sophie, a cis white queer woman, spearheaded a petition circulated via Equality Australia calling for the University to “Provide a Safe Environment for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals”. In it, Sophie and Priya write, “the primary concern of universities who are actively working to eliminate
discrimination against their LGBTQIA+ staff and students should be the safety and well-being of this group.” UMSU has come out in support of trans and GNC students and rejected the University’s defence of academic freedom of speech. “It unfortunately sends a message that the University will take special efforts to protect people who want to denigrate trans communities,” says Queer Officer Andie Moore. “Transphobic academics legitimise fear around trans people’s existence, and justify violence against them. If the University wants to commit to diversity and inclusion, it shouldn’t employ transphobic academics and allow them to spread hatred in its own name.” Dr Holly Lawford-Smith, a political philosopher who has only recently begun weighing in on the gender debate, was one of the speakers at the event. She recently defended her “right” to misgender people in an opinion piece published by Fairfax, arguing that being forced to use someone’s preferred pronouns amounts to “compelled speech” and that cis women should be able to dictate who is “entitled”
“Transphobic academics legitimise fear around trans people’s existence, and justify violence against them. If the University wants to commit to diversity and inclusion, it shouldn’t employ transphobic academics...” to use feminine pronouns. Lawford-Smith pushes back against the notion that her views can cause harm. She says, “having your identity claims denied is not ‘oppression’ and being offended is not the same as being ‘hurt’.” Despite these claims, she wishes to control how others identify her, not wanting to be referred to as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF). She argues that it amounts to a slur as it is “often used in a really misogynistic way”, because “it’s become associated with putting down [cis] women, dismissing [cis] women, an excuse to not listen to [cis] women’s concerns. Priya says of Lawford-Smith, “there’s a complete disconnect of understanding the power of discourse to hurt people,” where “[us] calling [her] a TERF is going to hurt [her], but [her] saying that transfemmes are actually men is not going to hurt them”. They write in the petition, “Discussions about the validity of transgender and gender non-conforming people’s identities neither adds to the richness of academic inquiry, nor does it foster a safe and inclusive learning environment.” These views on the power of words are echoed by McNamara, who says uncritically promoting views like
Lawford-Smith’s is dangerous, as “They’re a justification for not treating [trans people] well and abusing [trans people].” “I think the University should have people with a broad set of views and be a place for broad discussion,” she says, however, “People are entitled to their own opinions; they are not entitled to their own facts.” McNamara argues that while Lawford-Smith can say what she wants, the onus is on the University to ensure that these views are not taught as facts, or preferably not taught at all. She urges the University to re-examine its commitment to academic freedom and appropriate workplace behaviour. Concerns have also been expressed over the legitimacy the University lends to these views, with Moore saying, “By platforming people with these sorts of destructive views, the University is giving them credibility.” “Because [Lawford-Smith] has the title of doctor, it legitimises what she’s saying,” Sophie says. “My personal opinion is that she is abusing her position as a tenured academic at this University to propagate her opinions about something that isn’t even in her area of research.” The University of Melbourne has a history of hiring people with similar views to Lawford-Smith. In the past, the University employed retired professor of political science Sheila Jeffreys, notorious for her transphobic views. The University recently promoted Jeffreys as an expert on transgenderism, which McNamara likens to promoting anti-vaxxers as vaccination experts. As students, Priya and Sophie are sceptical towards how the newly implemented Freedom of Speech policy will affect the way views are expressed in an academic environment. “The wording around it is so loose and so subject to interpretation, that it builds in loopholes for anybody who wants to subvert it,” says Priya. “Freedom of speech is great if you’re a tenured academic who wants to say something bigoted.” McNamara says, “The University needs to be aware that people use their name to promote values and views that are in conflict with University values, the University needs to hold these people to account.” Academic freedom of expression has been endorsed by the University as a way of ensuring that ideas can be openly debated on campus. It recognises that “scholarly debate should be robust and uninhibited”, even when ideas may cause offence. But, for trans and GNC people like McNamara and Priya, these debates are difficult if their gender identity is not being respected. “Let’s not call each other names, let’s just have the conversation,” says Lawford-Smith, despite that she has repeatedly and purposefully called transgender women “males”, stopping the conversation before it can start. Arguments that cis women should have the ultimate say in all issues involving their gender have been used to try to bar trans women from women’s spaces and strip them of their identity. When these arguments are questioned, gender-critical feminists like Lawford-Smith say that any attacks on their ideologies are attacks on all cis women. The University of Melbourne continues to defend academics who use this rhetoric, allowing freedom of academic speech taking precedence over the fostering of productive debate. “It really makes me not want to study here,” Priya says, “The institution’s fucked.” 15
NEWS
CONTENT WARNING / criminal enforcement, violence and death
Fate of refugee activists’ “Divest from Detention” campaign against Melbourne University unclear by Vanessa Jo Di Natale and Ailish Hallinan
R
efugee advocacy group RISE has renewed calls for the University of Melbourne to sever ties with detention centre security, after the group’s initial divestment campaign was undermined by misinformation. According to a report by The Guardian (which has since been amended), RISE wrote an open letter, signed by over 200 staff, demanding the University end its contract with Wilson Security back in July this year. However, Wilson Security had not been employed by the University since 2017. The situation was complicated further when a University spokesperson did not correct RISE on this error, confirming with The Guardian that the University was open to discussing divesting from Wilson Security. In a media statement, RISE offered an explanation into the confusion, citing how “Wilson Security clearly stated on their webpage that one of their partners was Melbourne University.” RISE also referenced that Wilson Security continued to list the University of Melbourne as one of its “key clients” on their website, despite no longer being contracted by the University. “We approached Wilson Security before we released our statement to clarify whether they have an ongoing contract with Melbourne University but they refused to give us a clear answer,” RISE said. Wilson Security has since deleted their listing of the University of Melbourne as a client on their website. Further enquiry revealed that the University’s security is currently provided by MSS Security. The University’s contract with MSS Security, obtained under Freedom of Information, commenced on the 1st May 2017, with an initial term of 3 years. This was confirmed by Alan Tait, Chief Financial Officer of the University of Melbourne, through a media spokesperson. While some facts in their initial campaign were incorrect, RISE still believes the University has connections to detention centre security. According to RISE, MSS Security is a subcontractor of Serco Security Group, who is currently employed by the Australian Government to provide security services in detention centres across Australia. This includes the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation Centre (MITA) in Broadmeadows, where it was reported earlier this year that a 23-year-old Afghanistan man died. According to police, his death was not under suspicious circumstances. Two days after the man’s death, however, another man in
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the same facility sustained injuries from attempting to set himself on fire. RISE claim they have eye witness accounts of MSS Security Guards working in transit detention centres where Serco is the main service provider on the behalf of the Home Affairs Department (Australian Border Force): “An ex-detainee has seen MSS in one of the onshore camps from 2017... however it is not a good idea to specify the camp to avoid compromising their safety.” Serco, MSS Security and the Department of Home Affairs were all contacted for confirmation but MSS Security and Department of Home Affairs did not respond. Serco advised that questions about their subcontracting arrangements be directed to the Department of Home Affairs. Representatives from RISE and the University met on July 10 after Tait called for a meeting to address the University’s relationship with security companies in detention centres. Farrago had originally been invited to the meeting by RISE representatives, but was later informed that Tait did not want media in attendance. A media spokesperson for the University said that the University’s Vice-President (Administration & Finance) and Tait “had a positive and respectful meeting with three representatives of the RISE group”. However, it appears the meeting was not as well-received by the other party. RISE told Farrago, “At the meeting, RISE ex-detainee members were not satisfied with Melbourne University’s approach and excuses. [They] will not compromise [their] values and will not tolerate any ties with detention centre (sic) profiteers.” During the meeting, RISE ex-detainee member, Abdul Baig said that they did not want excuses from the University, but affirmative actions in favour of human rights. “We need them to live up to their own human rights values but behind the scenes, they continue their relationships with the detention profiteers. If Melbourne University is worried about their reputation, why can’t they say in public they will not support any detention profiteers?” The University has provided minimal information about the terms of their new contract with MSS Security nor specified if they are receptive to RISE’s divestment campaign when it relates to the University’s contract with MSS Security. This story is ongoing.
NEWS
Stalls for All by Annette Syahlani
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he Stalls For All report published by the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Queer department has found a need to change bathroom facilities due to exclusionary tendencies towards trans, intersex and gender diverse staff and students. Stalls For All is a campaign to promote accessible bathrooms on campus. Lead by UMSU’s Queer Political Action Collective, it draws attention to the lack of all-gender bathrooms on University campuses, especially in Parkville. Andie Moore, UMSU’s Queer Office Bearer (OB), said of the current bathroom situation, “Currently, where are students who aren’t guys or girls meant to go to the toilet? We’ve either got to hold it, or use a disability bathroom. Surely there’s a better way than this.” The report finds that there is a need for all-gender bathrooms on campus at the University of Melbourne. It starts with trans and intersex experiences on gendered bathrooms, and notes the lack of research on intersex experiences. Complemented by past research, the report explains how trans students have been verbally harassed and received stares for not being in the ‘right bathroom’, leading to anxiety and distress. These students will avoid gendered bathrooms altogether, which may lead to physical health issues such as dehydration and urinary tract infections. Farrago spoke to one such trans student at the University, Alex McFadden, who said that they avoid bathrooms on campus as much as possible “because I don’t feel comfortable in ‘male’ or ‘female’ toilets.” “I have previously left campus to use a gender neutral bathroom between classes. The fact that the University has made some of the accessible toilets gender neutral does not help as I feel uncomfortable taking that space from disabled students and staff who need those bathrooms.” The campaign argues that tackling this issue requires a shift from gendered to all-gender bathrooms to foster greater inclusion and allow trans people to develop their gender identity. Enforcing all-gender bathrooms could take the University’s inclusion initiatives beyond mere gestures and poster campaigns. This shift requires a re-design of the University
bathrooms itself. Moore emphasized the pressing need for change, and said, “The Stalls for All Report laid out a set of recommendations for implementing all-gender bathrooms, which we hope the University adopts and practices, and calls on the administration to ensure every building has at least one all-gender bathroom lobby. It’s high time bathrooms become inclusive places, for people of all genders and sexes.” For Moore and other students involved in the campaign, creating separate all-gender bathrooms through re-naming already existing universal or disabled bathrooms is unviable. The ideal bathroom is a ‘single space with separation by function’, where people gravitate towards different corners of the room according to the facilities and equipment they require. They would have: a set of floor-to-ceiling stalls with sanitary bins, no gaps under or above stall doors and functioning locks, and shared basins. They would remove “peek-a-boo cracks” to maximize the feeling of security. Bathrooms should also include urinals, clearly labelled and divided by partition. These bathrooms should also be accessible. The campaign put together a team of researchers to survey how many all-gender bathrooms exist on the Parkville, Southbank and Burnley campuses. Only 19.6 per cent of bathrooms in Parkville are all-gender. Southbank has 40.97 per cent, likely due to the fact that they have recently renovated their buildings, while two thirds of the buildings in Burnley have all gender bathrooms. Stalls for All calls the University to ensure all buildings have all-gender bathrooms, and ensure the safety of gender diverse students. The University has received the report and is reviewing its recommendations. McFadden has hopes for reform. “The UMSU Queer department, particularly Andie and Raph, have put a lot of thought and effort into the stalls for all campaign. It has been possible for people to be involved in many different ways. I’m hoping the campaign will get the University to commit to actionable changes across campuses.” The campaign recently launched a bathroom takeover on 23 October on Level 1 of Union House, transforming it to an all-gender bathroom for a day. This story is ongoing.
ART BY STEPHANIE ZHANG
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NEWS
Tutorial Torture by Sonja Repetti
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ast semester, I graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Science. I am overall complimentary about the teaching I experienced, but one area my experience has been inconsistent, to say the least, is tutorials. This got me thinking: what is the best way to support students consolidating what they learn in lectures? I spoke to students, tutors and lecturers to see how they felt about tutorials. What I found was that many factors influence the (sometimes contradictory) opinions people have about tutorials at Unimelb. A big issue, of course, is student engagement. A lot of this comes from confidence and experience, as a 23-yearold friend of mine who just started his first degree at Deakin texted me recently: “for some reason the 18y/o jaffy’s [sic] who have gone straight into more study weren’t as passionate as I on defining their definition of spirituality and its differences to religion”. Something I have also observed firsthand, especially in science tutes, is the fear of speaking in front of peers and getting an answer wrong. Social confidence gives students an academic advantage: math tutors mentioned how two or three people end up asking most of the questions and monopolising their time. But what about the students who want to talk but don’t feel like they can? Especially in discussion-driven tutorials, we can sometimes see one or two students dominate the entire discussion. Students I talked to emphasised the importance of the tutor in managing the class to prevent it being a monologue by the loudest students. This echoes what was found in the University of Melbourne Student Union’s (UMSU) 2017 Respect Week ‘How Privilege Manifests in Tutorials’ workshops, where most attendees expressed that at one point or another, they felt unheard or unable to speak in a tutorial. Proposed solutions included negotiating expectations as a class, more training for tutors (particularly in cultural awareness) as well as teaching strategies such as providing students time to write down and think about answers to questions, and activities that encourage students to lead tutorial discussions. Strategies suggested by those I spoke to are smaller (eg. within a table) discussions that don’t place you on the spot in front of everyone, as well as smaller tutorial sizes in general. The use of anonymous online polls is another option that students praised 18
ART BY JENNIFER LUKI ANDREANY
for allowing them to contribute without feeling judged. Those of us who are more confident in tutorials also have a responsibility to provide others with the opportunity and space to have their voices heard (and I think we can all agree that participation marks for tutorials are the literal worst; making 10 per cent of someone’s grade dependent on them being confident enough to talk is a little bit fucked). Let’s talk about tutor style for a moment. Just as the lecturer can make or break your appreciation for a subject, the same goes for tutors and their tutes. Something that I think both lecturers and tutors could afford to understand about attendance is this: you don’t deserve student attendance. If students don’t feel that they are learning from you, they will not attend. When students stop turning up, however, it can be a vicious cycle: an economics student mentioned how disheartening it was going to a tutorial where only six out of thirty students attended. This further discouraged them from attending. Students mentioned that good tutes have a tutor who shows clear interest in the content and especially teaching it. The best tutors are those who acknowledge when things are hard and confusing at first; you’re unlikely to get students to answer a question they are unsure of if you preface it with: “you should already know this” or “this is easy”. The matter of separate tutors compared with lecturers taking tutes is somewhat a contentious one. Some students said they prefer the lecturer so that they are sure what they are taught is correct for the exam, while others prefer a different person able to explain things in another way. Teaching staff commitments is one reason cited for holding only a single tutorial, but I remain unconvinced that the benefit of having the lecturer as the tutor outweighs the negatives of full cohort tutorials. I was gratified to learn that many students shared my beef with ‘lectorials’, my term for tutorials held in lecture theatres. Something about the enforced hierarchy of the room seems to further reduce the students willing to speak down to zero. A lecturer noticed a clear reduction in students willing to contribute in tutorials when their subject shifted from two tutorials held in tutorial rooms to a single lectorial style tute. Obviously, the benefit of lectorials is that they can be recorded, but is this really a plus if they’re not even worth listening to? Beyond the issue of having so
many in the room, students mentioned the impracticality of trying to work with others when you’re sitting in chairs welded into rows. Rooms that students consistently praised were the new classrooms in the Arts West Building, where large space and chairs on wheels can be used flexibly as required. A masters subject coordinator raised an issue with tutorial rooms I hadn’t considered: room availability. Some coordinators are unable to book tutorial rooms and end up having to use lecture theatres out of necessity. I hope that this is something Unimelb can address when it plans new learning spaces moving forward. Unsurprisingly, content was the most important factor mentioned informing student satisfaction with tutorials. Surprisingly, however, the content of tutorials also shaped students’ attitudes about the other factors above. For example, an engineering student’s favourite tutes involved questions to attempt beforehand with the tutor providing a summary sheet at the start of the tutorial and working through the solutions to problems. In this format perhaps lectorials are an option. For subjects involving problem solving at their core, tutorials with set questions can work quite effectively. The most important question to ask is: what are tutorials for? A tutor emphasised how in maths, where some lecturers are notoriously bad at watching their notation, tutorials are good for teaching good habits. When tutors can provide different perspectives and approaches to the lecturer, students are encouraged to attend and engage. Tutorial styles that were praised by science students included psychology and some ecology tutes with smaller student numbers where discussion is encouraged, and the set work has collaborative and problem-solving elements. As one student said: “good tutes encourage discussion and make you use your brain.” A problem arises when the subject content defies a discussion format. Arts subjects are easier to have debates about. Science is more about learning facts. Biology often involves rote learning a lot of facts, so what is the best way to consolidate this in tutorials? Many biology tutorials tend to involve questions or worksheets that students are set prior to the tutorial and either complete (or don’t) before attending class. Often solutions aren’t provided except for in the tutorial or afterwards, but if they are straightforward questions with straightforward
answers that are Google-able or can be found in the lecture notes, students may not see the point in attending tutes. It is these subjects that I think would really benefit from collaborative discussion-based tutes. Clearly establishing with students what purpose the tutorials hold in a subject is an important first step in ensuring they know what they are in for and that tutes are a success. So, if tutorials aren’t working, what is the alternative? One student I spoke to had struggled to engage with traditional lecture and tutorial formats but found a much better alternative in a subject they took that used a flipped classroom style. Flipped classroom is a fairly buzzwordy term that is thrown around a lot but essentially refers to a teaching format where the bulk of content traditionally taught in lectures is delivered outside the classroom, often online, and activities typically considered homework into the classroom, with time used to explore topics more deeply. They found in-person seminars a good halfway point between getting lectured at and doing independent study. Usage of online polls was praised for allowing everyone to contribute and test their knowledge. Of course, it is hard to come up with the definitive tutorial format because the many varied subjects taught at the University of Melbourne require different strategies to consolidate ideas and information. But I think tutorials and the purpose they serve should be considered across the University to ensure they are providing students with the best learning support that they can. A month ago, I started a master’s at the University of Helsinki and an immediate positive I have noticed is the benefit of small class sizes, which encourage greater discussion and a more positive learning environment. This isn’t always possible at Unimelb, but it is ideally what tutorials should make up for by supporting a smaller group of students to consolidate new ideas together. To finish on a positive note, the fact that the coordinators and tutors I spoke to are thinking about formats and how to improve tutorials is a good sign. Even for those taking dreaded lectorials, there is a desire to make the best of a bad situation. One lecturer mentioned leaving the lectern to approach students, and the use of flipped classrooms which I took as a promising sign that I’m not the only one who sees a problem and is thinking of alternatives. 19
CAMPUS
Office Bearer Reports PRESIDENT/Molly Willmott Wowzas! After two years, I’m signing off from UMSU. Thank you to every student who shared their student experience with me and a special thank you to the University of Melbourne for always finding something new for us to fight against. We’ve been busy fighting against the university’s new special consideration system and collaborating on changes to orientation starting in 2020. Make sure you check out my Presidents’ News on our Facebook page and website for more information. It’s been a privilege being your Women’s Officer and President, Unimelb! So for the last time, bigger better best, UMSU never rests! L8rs.
GENERAL SECRETARY/Reece Moir Hello, lovelies! This is my last submission to Farrago for the year and that actually makes me sad. For those of you reading our OB reports, thank you! Our elections for 2020 have finished and a huge congrats to everyone! Soon, the Returning Officer (RO) reports will be available to students and our electoral regulations will go to a working group for considering our RO’s recommendations. We also held an Special General Meeting on the 17th of September for a new constitution, which passed! This is available on the UMSU website to read if you are a governance nerd like me. Best of luck! xoxo
ACTIVITIES/Liam O’Brien Howdy, Activities has just thrown their final big event for the year, Oktoberfest! It was great time by all surrounded by friends and family with good food and beverages. Boy oh boy has it been a long but fun year for the department. We did some awesome things like implement mental health first aid at our events and had to take on the Entertainment department which includes Tuesday Bands, Bevs and BBQ. Speaking of em, how big were those crowds hey? The department is in good hands for next year and will continue to do fun and safe stuff.
BURNLEY/James Barclay
No OB report submitted.
CLUBS AND SOCIETIES/Jordan Tochner & Chris Melenhorst Jordan has been on leave, there was the mid semester break and now Fiona is away so none of the gang have really had a chance to be all together in a while but we’re chugging along. Inaugural General Meeting season is back for semester two so its exciting to see all the new clubs get started, App development is still underway and we’re excited to try and get some of the projects we’ve been working on all year into their final stages. Thanks to all the clubs who have submitted pictures for us to put on our wall and please keep sending them in!
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CREATIVE ARTS/Ellie Hamill & Lucy Holz Mudfest happened! We are so proud of everyone involved from the 18 people on our dedicated Mudfest team, to the insanely creative talented artists from all disciplines who produced over 50 works and to our enthusiastic team of over 180 volunteers. Mudfest was huge and we’re so grateful to all the support from UMSU to make it happen. We’re now wrapping up, paying invoices, writing handover reports and recovering physically, emotionally and mentally and looking forward to handing over the reigns of the department to the fantastic Emily White and Liv Bell for what will be an incredible 2020!
DISABILITIES/Lucy Birch
No OB report submitted.
EDUCATION ACADEMIC/Dominic Roque Ilagan & Elizabeth Tembo You’ve spoken and now with a *fire emoji* submission completed, it’s time to let the university know that we’ll not tolerate inequitable Special Considerations! We’re lobbying the government into creating paid internships for disadvantaged students and it’s looking good! A survey aiming to get all design students free software is launching! What a year! Thank you for the privilege of representing you. We’ve gotten lectures recorded, had the uni investigate assessment design, pushed the library to create additional study spaces (construction next year), and survived. Despite the blood, sweat and tears, it’s been a pleasure.
EDUCATION PUBLIC/Charli Fouhy The EdPub team has been very busy! We’ve been organising the Worker Student Alliance to go out and show solidarity with workers’ struggles all over Melbourne, because workers’ rights are always students business! We’ve also gotten the On Track campaign back off the ground, with UMSU Ed activists going to parliament and hitting the streets to fight for free student public transport! Finally, UMSU Ed has been flying the West Papuan flag from our offices to show solidarity with their studentled independence struggles! If you want to get involved with UMSU Ed, message the Facebook or Instagram pages or come to our 1pm Ed collective on Thursdays!
ENVIRONMENT/Will Ross Spring has sprung, colours are bursting in the air. And so too has the Environment Collective sprung into action. On September 20th, we joined 150,000 Melburnians for one of the biggest climate protest of the 21st century. Meanwhile, the struggle to protect sacred Djab Wurrung land goes on with numbers needed at camp. 2019 has been a big and colourful year for Enviro. We cordially invite you to our farewell picnic in Week 12 to plan for a new one. With a changing world full of urgent challenges, it is sure to be eventful. This is your Enviro officer, signing out.
INDIGENOUS/Jordan Holloway-Clarke & Laura Brown Hello general population of the university that reads our reports! The Indigenous department have been busy trying to get the Under Bunjil Edition 7 together and also trying to keep our heads above water with exams and assignments. Laura and I worked with Wilin Centre and Activities to organise the first Wilin Jams in North Court which was a massive success! We look forward to planning more stuff with them in the future. From the Indigenous Department, we wish everyone good luck with the upcoming exam period and has the most amazing summer break ever! Much love, your favourite blackfella xoxox 21
CAMPUS
PEOPLE OF COLOUR/Farah Khairat & Mark Yin It’s been a red-hot year in the PoC department! Our collective’s grown bigger, we’ve added new events to the calendar, we’ve worked with faculty, clubs and other departments throughout the year - and we’re not quite done yet. Keep an eye out for our final few events of the year, including Open Mic Night! We’re feeling very blue about leaving all your beautiful faces. Thank you to those who’ve made our work so rewarding and enjoyable. Follow us on Instagram and give us a yell(ow) next year - @farahkhairat (who will be studying postgrad at Monash) and @myin. rbc (who will be on exchange in California before finishing his Arts degree).
QUEER/Andie Moore & Raph Canty What an amazing year we’ve had! Twenty Bi-neteen hasn’t been easy but we’ve made it y’all. We’ve both been so delighted to be your Queer Officers this year: from sipping G&Ts with you at the Ida to scoffing Wednesday pizzas at the Queer Space, smearing glitter everywhere at Orientation and yelling at TERFs on a cold Thursday night. We hope you enjoyed the launch of CAMP and got to dance your ass off at Queer Ball! Give your new Queer OBs A’bidah and Ciara a big ol’ welcome hug for us. Love, Andie and Raph xx
SOUTHBANK/Lily Ekins
No OB report submitted.
WELFARE/Ashwin Chhaperia & Natasha Guglielmino Hey everyone! Thanks so much for an amazing year! We appreciate all the support throughout our term and thank you for attending our events! Our regular events (breakfast, mediation, yoga) will continue until the end of semester. Check our socials for the schedule. All the best for the rest of the year and see you soon!
WOMEN’S/Aria Sunga & Hannah Buchan It’s finally the end of the year, we made it! We’ve had the greatest honour being your Women’s Officers this year and we have had so much fun with you all. We recently launched our annual publication Judy’s Punch and we are working towards wrapping up the end of the year. We are looking forward to seeing what the Women’s Department does next year. Love Hannah and Aria xx
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SPINEBILL RED BY ASH J HOGAN
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ART BY BETHANY CHERRY
M—— by Emma Hardy
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here was a brief time in my life when I dated men for money. This says little about me other than that I was young and broke enough to seek sly ways to earn cash and a free meal, but too lazy to make a real job of it. It was on the fourth of these dates that I met M——. M—— was a large, wide Croatian man. His belly peered ahead of him, and his hair was badly balding, with only the too-long stragglers remaining around his crown. He pulled a seat out across from me at the Lindt Café on Little Collins Street and seemed to fill the entire window we were next to. He looked down at me and shook his head, letting out a sputter of air. He pushed his palms out in the shape of a cross, perhaps to cover my cleavage, and gave another distressed sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said, gesturing me up and down, “too young.” M—— could have been anywhere between a sickly thirty and a young-for-his-age sixty. His skin was coarse, dotted with thick stubble—though he may have shaved that morning. “I’m sorry,” he said, again, as though he was letting me down. “It’s okay,” I said. “I can leave, if you want.” “No, no. We get coffee. We talk. It’s just,” he made the cross gesture with his palms, shading out my breasts, “too young.” And he was right. I was too young. Too young to offer much but to listen, and so I did. M—— was born in Croatia. He lived there with his family, a good family, where he studied to be an optometrist (“You know, doctor for eyes,” he told me). He moved to Australia three years before our date, to work in a lab making prescription lenses. His English was badly broken. When he spoke, fat pearls of sweat swelled on his upper lip, like dew on a stubbly fish. The work was fine, but he was lonely. To talk to him—to make meaning from his fractured English—required time and patience. At work, he spoke to no-one. He drove home
by himself at the end of the day, went to bed alone. “I try dating online,” he said, “but nothing. Then this. What do I get out of this?” He gestures between the two of us, and it feels crude, like he’s asking for sex, but he’s not. He says that he’s paid for three dates so far—paid to use the website, even—but all the dates ended nowhere. The women, women like me, had taken his money and never called him back.
How does a middleaged Croatian man find love when language and culture and attraction feel like insurmountable barriers?
He slumped back in his seat, angry. Not at me (“too young”), not even at women, but at the “what’s the point” of it all. How does a middle-aged Croatian man find love when language and culture and attraction feel like insurmountable barriers? When he feels like he needs to put money on the line for a first date—a first chance—but the 25
NONFICTION women who agree are there for entirely different reasons. In an essay for the New Yorker, Jia Tolentino revisited a series of interviews she conducted with virgins, early in her career. “None of the people I interviewed believed that they were owed the sex that they wished to have,” she wrote. I thought of M——. Sex was part of the package he wished to have, alongside connection, love, dependability, someone to be kind with. But all of that felt trapped behind an inaccessible blockade of youth, attractiveness, thinness, coolness, whiteness, cultural sameness. Growing up, we’re told that looks don’t matter: it’s what’s on the inside. The princess kisses a frog, who was really a prince all along. Or marries the beast, who was really a prince all along. Or falls in love with that Seth Rogan character who was definitely not a prince, but you get the picture. Yet in the same breath shows like The Swan—where so-called ugly women compete with one another to be the least ugly at the end of it all—tell us something different. Miss Universe pageants are framed as being about inclusivity and scholarships, but let’s face it: looks matter. When I describe M——, I worry that I write him too grotesque. I don’t mean to imbue values on his appearance; he looked how he looked. Would it be fairer to say that his frown, while grumpy, was never snarly or unkind? That the collar of his white button-up shirt was perfectly pressed? He was not beautiful, for better or for worse. M—— told me that he went to a brothel but called it something different. “Very busy, that day,” he said. He took a seat in the waiting room, watched men walking in and out. Then, right before his turn, he saw the man before him walk out of the room, still pulling the zipper tight on his fly. “I couldn’t do it.” He shook his head. “I left.” I imagined him standing there, his big body tight with anxiety—with the fear of being just another number, with the un-specialness of him—and thought that was the end of it. Then he told me he went back. I lived next door to a brothel at the time, and remember the clouds of men shuffling out the front. They were almost always the nervous first timers, never aware of the more discrete entrance by the rear of the building. I imagine him amongst them. I must have seen dozens of them, but they all struck me as flat silhouettes with bean-like faces. There’s nothing in them that carries the distinctiveness of M——: all small anxious energy in that tall man’s body. The second time, M—— went when it was quiet, when most people were at work. He was led upstairs to a room by one of the sex workers (“lovely, very beautiful”). She took him to a small room with a double bed and an ensuite, like a hotel. She handed him a towel, smiled at him and told him she’d be back in a moment. M—— didn’t know what to do. He stood there, with all his clothes on, staring at the empty space where she’d just been. Some minutes later, when she returned, she laughed. You haven’t showered? she asked. M—— panicked, must have made some desperate shrugging gesture, and she (“so lovely”) comforted him. She took his hand and led him to the small ensuite, helped him take off his clothes, turned on the shower and bathed him. Once he was lathered and
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rinsed, she towelled him off and led him to the bed, sat down next to him, and tried to kiss him. He leaned away. “No, no, I couldn’t,” he told me. “I keep come back, just talk to her, only talk.” He paused, dabbed the sweat from his lip with a napkin. “Then, one day…” he shrugged, threw his hands up like what can you do?
M—— and I had met on a website called What’s Your Price, where men (or women, but mainly men) bid for a first date.
Our coffee arrived, and I was unclear whether M—— ever saw her again, not after that. What can you do? M—— and I had met on a website called What’s Your Price, where men (or women, but mainly men) bid for a first date. Offers range from fifty to a few hundred dollars. The site is explicit about not being an escorting site (that would be illegal), but the boundaries are unclear. It’s a place where people pay for a chance with someone who otherwise may be “out of [their] league”. An article in Forbes describes the site as like “the scene from Revenge of the Nerds, when Robert Carradine finally woos his beautiful blonde Betty in the moon bounce. He never would have had a chance with her otherwise”. Unattractive people have a chance thanks to the other commodity our capitalist society deems attractive: money. Monetised dating sites aren’t the only places out-ofluck in love individuals turn to. Since the late nineties, online communities have bloomed for men who are unable to find romantic or sexual love. They call themselves ‘incels’ (involuntarily celibate) and use forums as a place for confession, airing their grievances, and ranting about struggles that “femoids” (women), “normies” and “noncels” will never understand. Perhaps surprisingly, the seeds of the ‘incel’ community were well-intentioned and promoted inclusivity. The founder of the term “involuntarily celibate” was a young, bisexual woman named Alana. “I was trying to create a movement that was open to anybody and everybody,” she told Elle in 2016. She wanted men, women and nonbinary people to be able to explore their difficulties in relationships and grow from them. She wanted them to break away from social isolation and find self-loving, consensual relationships. Many people learned from the community,
grew from it, and moved on. Those who didn’t, however, stuck with the community, and let their resentment fester. ‘Incel’ communities now have violent branches. In 2014, Elliot Rodgers killed six people in what his 137-page manifesto described as revenge against the ‘blonde sluts’ who had ‘deprived’ him of sex. Other self-described ‘incels’ have praised his actions, or staged their own. Alek Minassian killed ten people by driving his van down a busy street in Toronto. Rodgers, Minassian and ‘incels’ like them go against the inclusive, feminist ideals with which the involuntarily celibate community was formed. These are men who violently believe they have a right to women, that women have value solely based on looks and sex. I mention the community’s violence not because I believe M—— was capable of such, but because it obscures the more interesting issues below the surface. What is now a forum for misogyny and hatred was once a place for acceptance. I don’t know whether M—— identified with the label ‘incel’. I doubt it. The stories he told me spoke of someone struggling with relationships and continuing to try anyway. Transactional sex, like the sex M—— had, can help people become more comfortable with themselves, their bodies, their sexuality. But sex, once again, was hardly the whole idea. While What’s Your Price is undoubtedly wrapped up in values of looks, money and sex, it also offered an appealing alternative to M——: perhaps, once the first date was out of the way, something more could bloom. If that were the plan, I wasn’t upholding my end of the bargain. My then-partner was waiting at home; we’d planned to use the money to go see a movie that night. If I were to accept that M—— couldn’t get a date because of the very same constructs that made it so easy for me, could I also accept that my partner would not be with me, would not love me, if I were less young, less thin, less attractive? Worse still, would I love them? M—— took a sip of his short black and dabbed the dark espresso stain with a napkin. “What do I get out of this?” he asked again, gesturing to the space between us. The question was rhetorical, but I felt put on the spot. I told him I didn’t know, that I could see his point. His shoulders slumped; he rubbed the napkin against his forehead. “I bought credits for the site,” he said, “you pay to message women. I use up the credits, then that’s it.” M—— put his empty coffee cup down on the table. “You leave first,” he said. He pushed six crisp $50 bills across the table. It’d be nice to say I left them there, thanked him for the talk, but I took them. I stood up and he shook his head once more, made the palm gesture, “too young”. I slipped through the café doors into the mid-afternoon sunshine, folding the $300 into my pocket. I walked around the block twice, just to be safe, before heading back to my apartment. I didn’t go on any more dates after that. It didn’t feel worth it. So, I stopped.
ART BY BETHANY CHERRY
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Living Well When You’re Unwell by Lou Winslow
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elcome to Living Well When You’re Unwell, a column that answers all your questions about navigating uni, life, relationships, and jobs with disability and chronic illness. What exactly does ‘reasonable adjustment’ mean? I heard that word being said a lot in regards to disability. I’ve also heard ‘reasonable accommodation’. What are the differences between the two? - Seeking Clarification
There are lots of ways to advocate for disability rights and accessibility. You can join in on conversations online, hashtag campaigns, or even contribute to website like Invisible Disability Project.
In different countries, different terminologies are used to refer to making adjustments to ensure a person with disability is not barred from an activity or employment. For example, in the United States the term is ‘reasonable accommodation’. If you travel to different countries or even if you’re an international student used to the terminology in your home country, it can be confusing to understand what these different terms mean. In the case of ‘reasonable adjustment’ and ‘reasonable accommodation’, they refer to the same thing. In Australia, under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, people with disabilities
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ART BY REANN LIN
are entitled to reasonable adjustments in cases where their safety, productivity, and comfort are being infringed upon. Interestingly enough, when it comes to reasonable adjustments under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, it’s not just people with permanent disabilities who are affected. Many people don’t know that you’re still entitled to reasonable adjustments if you are a person who is: • Permanently disabled (physical, mental, etc.) • Ill (either temporary or permanent) • Temporarily injured How can I get into disability advocacy? Is there anything I can do at uni? - Wanting to Make a Difference There are lots of ways to advocate for disability rights and accessibility. You can join in on conversations online, hashtag campaigns, or even contribute to websites like Invisible Disability Project if you are a person with a disability. There are also options to get into disability advocacy locally. You can join Accessible Unimelb if you’re a student or faculty member, no matter if you’re a person with a disability or just passionate about equality. Accessible Unimelb is a student group focused on disability advocacy, awareness, and inclusion. Accessible Unimelb meets monthly to discuss the student experience, attitudes towards people with disability on campus, employment after graduation, and how to make positive and inclusive change on campus. If you wanted to get connected to this group or find out more, you can email livingwell@farragomagazine.com and we’ll put you in touch! Do all students with a disability need to be registered with Student Equity and Disability Support? - Asking For a Friend If you’re a student with a disability, you’re not required to register for ongoing support unless you want to or need to. Not all disabilities are the same, and therefore they don’t always lead to the same types of access needs. So some students with disabilities may not actually need any adjustments or ongoing support.
COLUMN
Kiss and Tell by A’bidah Zaid Shirbeeni
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was sitting at a café and doing my readings when my phone buzzed. A friend of mine had sent a screenshot of a conversation she had with a guy on Tinder to our group chat of 12 women of colour and captioned it: “white men could never.” He had sent her a rather cheeky text and we collectively agreed that she should go on a date with him. Another friend sent a screenshot of a conversation that she had on Hinge. We told her to run the other way. Soon the chat started buzzing about the men we’ve dealt with on various dating apps and we got into the cursed and problematic experiences we’ve had with white men. Look, I don’t hate white men. Heck, my first boyfriend was a White Melbournian boy. I only dated him because he looked like Michael Clifford from 5 Seconds of Summer and he only dated me because I wasn’t white. Which is worse? You tell me. As a woman of colour, I’ve had my fair share of being fetishised to dealing with culturally insensitive remarks. Ask any other woman of colour too and they’d tell you the same thing. It’s frustrating and quite frankly, disheartening. Navigating dating in a majority-White space can make you feel like a tourist spot or a beautiful land that colonisers rush towards like bees to honey. Being called exotic is expected to be taken as a compliment and speaking good English seems to take your matches by surprise. I’m not saying ALL my experiences with white men are tragic cases, but they can definitely be better. After my breakup with the Michael Clifford lookalike, I started seeing more people of colour. Not that Michael Clifford ruined white men for me, I just felt more comfortable around people like me. The boyfriend after Michael Clifford was Arab like myself. It was nice because he was my best friend then and it felt more like a genuine connection. We bonded over listening to old mainstream Arab songs and talking about our families. We seemed to have a number of mutuals and turns out he was the cousin of a family friend. What was even crazier was that we had actually met each other numerous times as children. The relationship was a good five years but that didn’t turn out well. The break up was horrible because mutual friends felt like they needed to pick a side. Family politics came into play
and navigating social events where our families are bound to bump into each other was truly an uncomfortable situation for me. It’s been a year since the break up and I still feel uneasy meeting with his family members. But dating people of colour different from my own background had its struggles too – language barriers when trying to communicate with family based overseas, un-learning stereotypes and re-learning your partner’s cultural norms and my personal favourite: being told that as a woman of colour I’m not “cultural” enough because “my beliefs are too Westernised”. The whole “my mother thinks you’re beautiful but you probably have to change the way you dress. It’s too tight-fitting for her liking, I hope you understand. It’s my culture.” Or that when my queer identity gets brought up it gets shut down (especially by cishet male partners) because “it’s not okay in my culture”, “it’s not okay in our religion” and “yeah, no you’re definitely straight because you’re with me now.” Queerness is still taboo or frowned upon in many religions and cultures and my involvement in queer rights has either rubbed partners the wrong way or has created this superhero complex in them. They’d attempt to put a cloak over my activities so as to “save me” from their family finding out that I believe in equal rights and am against oppressing marginalised communities. Some would even express their concern when I get too friendly with a female-identified individual, more than when I do with cishet males because it’d hurt their ego if they were to “lose me to a girl”. Of course, not all communities of colour are hostile to queer folx and if I dare say, I think these partners of mine were using culture to mask their homophobia. I guess erasing and dismissing my identity was a big sign, huh? Dating with a positionality like mine is tough. I feel like at least one part of my identity gets erased at some point of another. It’s either get fetishsised or be forced into the closet. Queer dating as a person of colour on the other hand presents safety risks - but maybe I’ll talk about that in my next column ;) So what I’m trying to say is… I shouldn’t date. But if I don’t, you wouldn’t be here having a read.
THE CAUCASITY BY CHARANJA THAVENDRAN
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PLANTING PROGRESS BY BETHANY CHERRY
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ART BY YI XIA
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Regulating Language by Conor Clements
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anguage has faced an onslaught of changes in the face of globalisation, as influences from across the world fight against local ideals of what a language should be. Language academies—organisations that act as regulatory bodies of different languages—are leading the fight against changes to language they perceive as illegitimate. Massive growth in world trade over the past half-century has opened up similarly large transfers of pop culture and mass media, which has been difficult for many of these academies to push back against. Technological advancements made over this period have been a major source of language change, and the way these regulators have responded to this is especially interesting—the process of coining a new word can be more entertaining than you might think. I’ll start with a quick comparison between languages with the word “computer”. In Standard Chinese, “computer” is translated as a compound of the word for electricity—diàn— and the word for brain—nǎo, which is pretty straightforward. Standard Chinese is the kind of language where it makes more sense to create compounds rather than try to emulate the pronunciation of an original word, which is something that regulators take into account. No such barriers exist with Japanese, apparently, which takes a much more laissez faire approach: their regulator’s translation is konpyūtā. I’m sure you can see the resemblance. French, which has a notoriously conservative language academy, uses ordinateur as its translation—quite different to English. This becomes a lot funnier once you delve into the etymology of the word “computer” and realise it’s actually derived from French in the first place. What makes a language regulator “conservative”? If we focus on France’s Académie française for a second, we can see this in two ways. Firstly, it is relatively culturally conservative—its members are elected for life and they have a funny uniform with an intricately embroidered blazer and ceremonial swords. The second way is more closely related with language itself—in 2017, they condemned efforts to make French more inclusive by ending the “masculine prevails over the feminine” rule in the grammatical gender system, saying that doing so would put French in “mortal danger”. Similarly, they avoid borrowing words, particularly English ones, instead preferring to create equivalents based
in French. Sometimes they come up with a completely different and unrelated word, as with the “computer” example, but other times it’s more simple. Gratte-ciel, for example, means “skyscraper”, literally—gratte is “scrape,” ciel is “sky”. The irony of the French seeking to avoid anglicisation of their language is that around a third of Modern English’s vocabulary is borrowed from French in the first place. I can see why they’d be wary, I guess. The role these regulators play in society varies, but often they’re in charge of pretty important things, from basic things like producing dictionaries, to designating children’s names. In Iceland, for example, this means there is an actual list of names that you are permitted to use, and names that you specifically cannot use. I assume some of these would have been outcomes from court disputes, which is brilliant—including names like “Emilia,” “Thor” (though “Hafþor” is okay) and “Moon” (fair enough) among others. Language academies are often the frontline mediator of globalisation for a given language. Their influence determines how much language contact can occur. Of course, nothing guarantees that words from a foreign language won’t slip past regulators before they have a chance to come up with a decent translation for it, but many academies have enough of a reputation that citizens will listen to them. But their responses to these changes present some interesting questions. How does importing a lot of foreign vocabulary in a short amount of time change a language? Is it just an inevitability of the interconnectedness of the modern world, or does a language lose something when it borrows a word in its original form? From my perspective as an English speaker, which is so often the source of loanwords, I can certainly sympathise with the perspective of those who seek to keep their languages as their own, especially if introducing loanwords is seen by many in a community as a loss of cultural identity. But at the same time, I can’t help but oppose the ideals of language purity that regulators often peddle. A lot of the time, it’s little more than masked attempts to homogenise the way we use language, and as a linguistics student who firmly believes we should seek to describe language rather than prescribe it, that’s something I can’t support. ART BY CATHY CHEN
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All that Glitters is not Gold by Shubhi Saini
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very year, the city of Melbourne witnesses the arrival of countless international students. Australia is the third largest destination for foreign education, and is expected to overtake the UK this year. An Australian academic degree is seen as a passport to an upgraded quality of life by most international students. And they’re absolutely willing to pay huge sums for it. In Australia, a degree roughly costs $70,000, compared to just $20,000 in New Zealand or $55,000 in Canada. I paid $70,000 to be where I am today. While it is a privilege to be able to afford an education abroad, many unspoken costs like underpaid wages, homesickness, cultural shock, financial instability and underemployment came as a surprise. But as an international student, I’m not sure if these costs are worth the price our parents pay.
I was lucky enough to have a friend waiting for me outside the airport, where does a student go for assistance on initially arriving in Melbourne? Their university? Their agent? Who else? “Initially, I found prepping even two meals a day very difficult and time consuming.” It was Ayushi’s first time away from the luxuries of home. Ayushi Parikh is a woman from the Gujarat state of India who, like myself, is in her last semester at the University of Melbourne. She did not know how to overcome odds that she had never dealt with before, especially in a new land. To her, even sustenance seemed challenging. Her anxious mother, worried about her daughter leaving for college without a lunch box, could no longer run after her daughter before she left for university. “I would end up eating just one meal during early evenings,” Ayushi recalled. “That would suffice my appetite for both lunch and dinner.”
Cultural Adjustments Don’t Happen Overnight
Having been in Melbourne for almost two years now, I’ve found that international students stress for reasons that might astonish Melbourne locals. India is a developing country. The roots of people are embedded in its long existing traditions and rituals. Many leave their homes only to marry and commence a new chapter of their lives. Stepping outside to academically compete with folks from an array of backgrounds is nothing short of an escapade for international students. When I spoke with other international students, I noticed there was not enough support to aid them in their new beginnings away from the comforts of home. Even though
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ART BY JENNIFER LUKI ANDREANY
For Aditya Ghosh, who studied at Monash University, cultural shock was exactly what he had anticipated. “The major challenge in the first month was to be independent and to learn by trial and error,” he said. “Even now, living here for long time periods without visiting home makes me homesick, especially when you’re a man of colour.” Being a brown man in a foreign land can be appalling. The long-existing social stratification in India has imbibed in its citizens a dread of being distinguished on factors like colour and creed even today. Now, someone who already carries with himself a fear of being ‘different’ is certain to carry such fears with him wherever he goes. Pluralism, same sex relationships, equality of genders are still amid other factors that have not been acknowledged by quite a number of third world societies like India. In the specific case of India, even though we have
progressed through leaps and bounds, 200 long years of colonisation have left their bearing. This is doubly true for people coming from smaller and less advanced states of the country. Unfortunately, an international student might find it problematic to take directions from a woman, contrary to a local who might find such an act immensely discourteous. Well, feminism in India is not a topic of sensation for no reason.
tough to secure themselves a decent job, let alone survive through it. Flashes of discomfiture while realising the trivial flaws in spoken phrases that no one ever amended are part of the learning slope. “It took me time to get accustomed to the Australian slangs,” smiles Aditya. “No worries mate had more to it than the most obvious meaning: I’m not worrying.”
Differences Are Everywhere, Even in The Classroom
Unlike ROTE learning in Asia, which is a more sophisticated word for memorisation, the education system in Australia prioritises comprehension of knowledge.
Language is a Huge Barrier to Finding Employment Finding a job that pays enough to cover expenses is perhaps the most challenging and frantic state most students find themselves in. To add to the mammoth sum of tuition fees, the atrocious currency differences do little for students’ financial scenarios. Students are often left with no choice but to ask for money from back home. Study and work can be stressful to deal with simultaneously. “To earn money did make me financially independent, but it was a tough ride,” says Safi. “My biggest struggle was to find a job without knowing anyone in this country apart from balancing it with hefty assignments.” Speaking English is more than just a prerequisite to becoming qualified to study in a foreign land. In Australia, most part-time jobs necessitate knowing fluent English. It’s easy to see why a lot of international students find it
Unlike ROTE learning in Asia, which is a more sophisticated word for memorisation, the education system in Australia prioritises comprehension of knowledge. ‘How much can you remember’ is substituted by ‘Do you understand’. This difference makes it less hectic for students who have been buried in books in their entire academic cycle, trying to fit everything in their brains, notwithstanding the content’s relevance in the long run. Ayushi says, “The difference is in the way students are taught and expected to function; it took me a while to cope with multiple deadlines but now it’s nothing different from any other exercise because I understand what I’m doing.”
So What Do International Students Want? “For those sponsored by their parents, ensuring stable employment opportunities is the least the government can do,” said Ayushi after a little thought. Guidance and hands-on support would help international students understand the dynamics of Melbourne. This support would help students feel at home and improve their experience. “The government can identify and solve major challenges by carrying out research, surveys, etc,” suggests Safi. “Running seminars and workshops that cater to different glitches would be a great start.” When I look back now, I can recall learning to cook through YouTube, doing laundry, competing to stand out in the class. I remember how I initially disliked the taste of the local beer. I look back on how I’ve changed since landing in an unknown land on the first day, to now calling it second home. These escapades, while mundane, made it a once in a lifetime learning experience. “There were struggles and there were days so bad that I just wanted to quit,” Aditya says. “But it was worth it!”
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Diaspora Dilemmas by Veera Ramayah
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’ve started asking my relatives at family dinners a particular question each meal to provoke discussion around the table and punctuate Nani’s buffet of dishes. My latest question: “What crime would you commit if you could get away with it, one hundred percent?” There are always some interesting answers, from breaking and entering to stealing supercars. However, my answer has more or less remained the same. I’d break into every museum around the world, the Tower of London included, and take back all the stolen artefacts from India. I’d target every heavily decorated museum shelf around the world, especially in places like Europe. I’m aware that this makes me sound like some kind of desi-vigilante-cat-burglar, but if you look at the shelves of any museum, especially in their “antiquities” section, it makes you wonder why we glorify theft. We often pay ungodly entrance fees just to gawk at it, yet severely punish those who steal if they lack the cocktail of institutional and governmental alibis. The underlying idea behind the continued possession of blatantly stolen historical items is a sense of entitlement to them by the institutions these artefacts reside in. This sense of entitlement can be traced back to colonial times, where that same sense motivated the British Empire to forcefully occupy almost 24% of the world. That, because of their relentless imposition on indigenous communities worldwide, in addition to the facades of progression set up, that they have somehow ‘earned’ the artefacts that are so boldly on display. In an age where we can barely last the year without buying a new smartphone and throw ageing possessions before they have a chance to decay, it’s puzzling why we still refuse to throw away the remnants of the toxic colonial mindset. And in the world of academic history especially, due to this sense of entitlement, European standards of achievement are forced upon non-white countries with regularity. Conveniently, these standards fail to take into account the trail of death and devastation that the Empire left behind, and how most modern independent countries have been rebuilt again from the ground up.
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ART BY TIFFANY WIDJAJA
These European standards of ‘success’ are forced into almost everything. We see it in politics, in beauty standards, and especially in the field of fine art. Why do most children learn about Michelangelo and Botticelli as the default? Where is the celebration of our global diversity, of great artists that match the colour of the earth, as opposed to the colour of the Coles milk section? It’s not as if non-white countries don’t have our fair share of great artists, my great-grandfather, Sukumar Bose, among them. His work hangs in the Vatican, has donned the walls of the Indian Presidential Residence, Rashtrapati Bhavan and is part of the Obamas’ private collection. It is a privilege to walk past his artwork that dons the walls of my grandparents home and to see the beauty of his works up close. The kind of talent he was gifted with, the ethereal beauty that emanates from his work is a phenomenon that needs to be shared, for the benefit of the world. It pains me that, without family stories and a niche community of mostly Indian artists, his talent and stories are lost to the art world. Imagine, like that, how many Sukumar Bose’s are out there, revered in ethnic halls of history around the world. The craftsmanship, expertise and beauty of art all around the world, no matter the form, should not be shelved and conveniently mushed together to “spice up” a reference or reading list. The process of reclamation starts with shifting the emphasis back on indigenous art forms, and by extension, indigenous culture. We need to let go of the learned behaviours we have internalised and consciously replace them with elements of our culture. Recently, the move by French President Macron to expatriate 26 artefacts to Benin represents a landmark decision in this process, and one that I hope heralds change across Europe. To no one’s surprise, the British Museum of Natural History has said that they have no plans to expatriate any items in their collection. Until that day arrives, you can find me making preparations for a flight to London, wearing an all-black outfit. And, to be honest, how can I steal something that was never theirs in the first place?
NONFICTION
Tooti Fruity Pavani Ambagahawattha in defence of the rambutan
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pon first glance, the rambutan is a strange beast—a hard little thing, the rough size and shape of a pingpong ball that would fit comfortably in your closed fist. The word skin describes the thick, rubyred layer covering its flesh much better than peel does. It’s an extraordinary colour, that red— the shade of blood and heat and desire, the red a fifties Hollywood starlet would have painted her lips with, the sort of red I imagine tempted Eve to the forbidden apple. Even more perversely, the rambutan’s skin is not smooth but hairy, covered with spindly little spikes that only make it look weirder. The correct way to break a rambutan open is to use a knife. I call that the coward’s way. If you’re a lawless rebel like me, you bite into it whole, cringing at the sudden bitterness the break in the skin fills your mouth with, then use your teeth to rip the rest of it away. (Of course, there is a very good reason why you shouldn’t do this—namely, the almost invisible white bugs that live under the spikes that you will end up chewing in half). Once the skin is discarded, a ghostly white globule remains. There is no greater contrast than that between the rambutan’s solid red exterior and the translucent, pearly flesh within. Though the rambutan is as striking in flavour as in colour, it’s difficult to pin down precisely what it tastes like. Perhaps like the lychee, you might think, but then you would be wrong. If there is anything to take away from this piece, it’s that the rambutan is certainly not the lychee. The latter is pathetic, overrated mush; the former, the very nectar of the gods. In contrast to its vile cousin, the rambutan is neither sickly sweet nor overly juicy. Its texture is soft, but with just enough firmness to give it some bite. The flavour is light, lovely and subtle. There is a gentle sweetness, mingled with hints of an ever so exotic and elusive something else—a flavour that blooms on the tongue for a second and disappears just before you think you’ve figured out exactly what it is. Despite its considerable size, most of the rambutan’s volume comes from the hard seed at its core. In fact, once all the fuss and frills have been stripped away, the paltry layer of white flesh clinging to the seed is the only edible bit of the fruit. All that work—the frantic peeling, the scraping away of the meat with your teeth, the careful gripping of the seed so that it doesn’t slip into your throat and literally choke you to death—all that, for barely two bites. Like the
pomegranate, the rambutan is no easy conquest. It knows its own worth and is not afraid to make you work for it. Being a shy and unassuming sort myself, I can’t help but bow before such a haughty display of self-respect. Moreover, the rambutan’s size also means that one is never quite enough. Each portion is large enough to titillate but too small to satisfy, leaving you reaching compulsively for more. The sweetness lulls you into a hypnotic haze, and you only come to your senses several hours and many dozen rambutans later, finding yourself queasy and sticky-fingered amidst a sea of red skins. This is a feeling I know all too well. To me, the rambutan has always been nature’s scarlet temptress, whose charms I am powerless to resist. Case in point: The Almighty Rambutan Binge of 2016. It was summer, rambutan season was full swing and since my love of the fruit was known throughout the neighbourhood, some kind soul had dropped a sack of it off at my place. I hoarded this (precioussssss) sack with Gollum-like fervour, snarling at any family member who dared ask me for their fair share. That weekend, I went on a fruit bender. Two days were spent lying inert on a couch, popping one rambutan into my mouth after another in an endless stream as the pile of shells beside me grew from an anthill into a mountain. Finally, Monday dawned. Dazed, confused and picking stray bits of fruit from my hair, I awoke from my bacchanalia, then promptly proceeded to vomit nearly non-stop for twenty-four hours. The Lord Above had seen— and punished—my gluttony. The funny thing, however, was that as soon as the nausea subsided, there was only one thing I found myself craving. Like the smitten fool who returns to the arms of the lover who once betrayed them, the power of the rambutan was such that I could not stay away. I love the Western world’s tendency to suddenly “discover” and obsess over foods that have just come off long and lucrative careers as core elements of Eastern cuisine. It’s the cutest thing. But, though coconut water, tempeh, turmeric and ginseng have been elevated to dizzying heights of fame, the rambutan—which is their superior in every aspect—remains obscure. The injustice of this takes my breath away, and I hope that someday soon bowlfuls of rambutans will adorn every chic yoga studio and meditation retreat, and Gwyneth Paltrow will sing its praises at Goop wellness summits throughout the world. ART BY YUSHI WU
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BLUE BY MUCHEN YAN
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CONTENT WARNING / explores racism, misogyny and fetishisation
You Look so Exotic by Chelsea Rozario
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xotic like that gentlemen’s lounge on King Street. Like that out of this world, alien-looking plant perched on a shelf in my boyfriend’s bathroom. Like that drawing of an endangered bird he has on the collage also in his bathroom. I wonder if people call me exotic because my perpetually purple lips are framed by more peach fuzz than most. Because to them I’m nothing more than brown skin, almond eyes and thick thighs. Maybe it’s the bridge of my nose and how it’s everything but straight. Maybe it’s the way I speak. “But your English is so good!” “Where’d you learn English?” In school? My mum taught me? The same way everyone else did. I hate the word with a passion. It rolls off tongues with the excuse of good intentions, consistently stinging my ear drums hard enough to be angrily written about. The hair on my arms stand up in gooseflesh, shivers run down the back of my spine and my shaky hands clench into fists every time I hear it. I’ve heard it far too much. I had never been called exotic before moving to Melbourne. A whole 18 years without ever being described 40
ART BY AMANI NASARUDIN
the same way scientists and wildlife enthusiasts categorise flora and fauna. In Malaysia, I was just another brown girl. Nothing out of the ordinary. I’d always heard about cultural insensitivity and how some white boys “frothed over” brown girls, never realising it would ever happen to me. I was blissfully unaware of how a word could ever make me feel so uncomfortable, so utterly worthless. Nights out never go smoothly for me. I either encounter blatant, unapologetic white privilege or end up falling off wobbly barstools, breaking high heels and acrylic nails in the process. I remember the first time someone called me exotic. It was at Yah Yahs. Fitzroy had always been a safe space to me, with the exception of drunk college boys roaming around the eclectic suburb, looking to cause chaos and exert some casual male privilege. Nowhere is wholeheartedly devoid of ignorance. Yah Yahs was packed out that Friday night. My friend and I waded through the sea of people much taller than our five foot four selves all for the sake of espresso martinis on tap. We got to the badly aged wooden bar that came up to our chins, my elbows resting
on its chipped surface, debit card carelessly between my fingers like a sloppily held cigarette. My friend went to the bathroom, leaving me alone and vulnerable to the college boys in search of a mindless, drunken hook-up. A boy wearing his college jumper stood uncomfortably close to me. I thought he was an idiot for wearing a college jumper to a bar, or any place not college. I’d think he was a bigger idiot in about five minutes.
It became routine to be called exotic in bars, regardless of how sophisticated or expensive. Where there was alcohol, there was ignorance. Where there were people, there was intolerance.
“Has anyone ever told you, you look like Mia Khalifa?” The words slurred carelessly from his lips, the scent of a cheap pint on his breath. No, it had never occurred to me that I possibly looked like one of the most famous porn stars. I don’t think I do. It was a weird feeling of trying to process his comment as a compliment with complete knowledge that he was saying it because we both look ethnic. “Yknow, you both look exotic. Especially you in that colour.” My first thought was holy shit college boys really don’t know anything. Mia Khalifa and I aren’t even the same kind of brown. I looked up at him, completely unimpressed and rolled my eyes. “Oof that’s a bit racist. And creepy,” I said. “I was complimenting you.” He sounded bitter, as if I’d ruined his chances of potentially getting laid. I’m assuming those were his intentions. It isn’t exactly normal to have someone tell you that you look like a professional porn star without the pretence of sex. The enthusiasm he initially had when equating me to one of the only vaguely mainstream brown girls was now gone, replaced with frustration and a shattered male ego. He walked off soon after I politely shut him down. I should’ve been ruder. I always regret not being rude in response to implicit racism. It became routine to be called exotic in bars, regardless of how sophisticated or expensive. Where there was alcohol, there was ignorance. Where there were people, there was intolerance. It happened at PA’s when a fresher came up to me and asked where I was from. The word Malaysia must trigger something in the blatantly ignorant. Like a switch that activates stupidity. “Oh but where’d you learn English?” I could smell the vodka cranberry he had spilt on his ill-fitting jeans. He looked like he’d pissed himself—a suitable look for someone who thinks pointing out
someone’s English literacy is a compliment. He sounded enthusiastic as if he was genuinely surprised at my ability to hold a conversation in English. It infuriated me. It’s not like Malaysia was ever colonised by the British. I texted my friend sitting across from me, telling him what the fresher had just asked me. He saw this as an opportunity to obliterate any confidence the fresher had. “Oi, where’d you learn English?” he asked. The fresher looked horrified at having his ignorance exposed, pouting at me, abruptly moving away. Thank god. It happened at The Espy in St Kilda. The drinks were grossly overpriced which I stupidly mistook as a notion of safety. Surely this only happens in dodgy uni bars. I went up to the bar and got asked for ID. I pulled out my passport and showed the bartender who stared at it as if he was memorising my full name and trying to decipher the Malay on it. “You’re Malaysian?” “Yeah I am.” “Malaysian Indian?” He squinted his eyes at me as if he had reason to doubt my ethnicity despite holding my bright red passport. “Yeah.” “Oh, that’s exotic.” I felt my eyes rolling back into my skull. I am not a bird. I am not a plant. I have never been either. Eye-catching, maybe. But I am not fucking exotic. I glared at him until I got my prosecco and passport. Whatever, it’s just a word. Harmless. Words always seem harmless. They seem like the can’t ever hurt you. Until they do. I’ve always blamed it on myself—for being too sensitive or uptight. That it’s my fault for not knowing how to loosen up. But when being called exotic escalates into a worn-out pick-up truck trailing behind you 30 seconds from what you thought was your safe school district share house, that’s when you know exotic isn’t just a word. Or when you’re running in shitty knockoff Filas, followed by two white men at three in the morning asking for your name, saying you look exotic, their voices ringing with the sound of too much pale ale. Or when their car turns into the laneway you live on, and you fear you might not make it to your doorstep ten metres in front of you. Suddenly the word doesn’t seem so harmless. That’s when you realise how much it has been laced with malice, inherently fetishised and just how much it should piss you off. It has never held pure intentions. No longer does it signify the beauty of botany. No longer does it describe striking wildlife. It describes the people so often disregarded by the world. Because we are different. Because we are “other”. Women of colour exist for our aesthetics and our culture— for exploitation. We are objects of the western male’s gaze. Skin equated with similar shades they’ve only seen in porn. English they cannot fathom coming out of a brown girl’s mouth. Otherness so striking it becomes unreal. Like exotic animals and unfamiliar verdure, maybe they think we don’t belong here either. It is degrading. It makes people question their worth and doubt their importance. Its ability to reduce personhood to the colour of skin—significant. Maybe people only notice my skin. Maybe where I’m from is all that matters. Nothing else seems to. It is not just a word. It has never been just a word. 41
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ART BY ALEXANDRA BURNS
CONTENT WARNING / ableism, transphobia
NONFICTION
We’re all Worthy by Tyler McRae Trans identity is a pretty hot topic right now, as it has been for a while, with the recent changes to birth certificate laws. These days being trans is being seen more and more as an ordinary part of modern life. Medical definitions are gradually broadening to include a diversity of experiences—there is less focus on trans identity being an inherent psychological or physical defect. Consider the shift from ‘gender identity disorder’ to ‘gender dysphoria’, and the increasing acceptance of gender diversity in schools, workplaces and society.
There’s a reason gender nonconformity is pathologised: it’s a way for nonconformity to be marginalised in a society that values the opinions of doctors over their patients.
Some see this as a positive step, and in many ways it is. ‘Transsexualism’ as a medical condition was invented by sexologists around the early twentieth century, following a long history of gender queerness and nonconformity. Since then, trans identity has, at least on an institutional level, revolved around medical understandings of gender nonconformity as a mental or physical illness, deficit and disability. The medical model places gender nonconformity firmly in the ‘gone wrong’ box, rather than seeing it as a natural part of human diversity. This idea is not helpful, as it suggests that trans people are unnatural, sick and inferior. Others argue that it’s important for transness to be pathologised in some way, as gender dysphoria often requires medical intervention. It’s easier to access healthcare when the
professionals agree that it’s needed. These arguments are persuasive in their own ways, however, there’s another side to the debate—the ‘gone wrong’ box itself. The medical model of trans identity is steeped in ideas of disability. Labelling trans people as sick and abnormal is relying on disability as a way to discredit and marginalise gender nonconformity. Rhetoric around disability and illness have frequently been used to discredit and dismiss marginalised groups as deserving or suited to oppression to uphold the status quo. Consider ‘female hysteria’, where women’s bodies and sexualities were turned into a medically curable condition. There’s a reason gender nonconformity is pathologised: it’s a way for nonconformity to be marginalised in a society that values the opinions of doctors over their patients. What we’re missing in discussions around trans identity and medicalisation is the integral role of disability. A knee-jerk reaction to realising transness and disability are intertwined is to distance trans identity from disability—being trans isn’t a disability, it’s not an illness, how dare you insinuate I’m disabled! But behind that rejection is a devaluation of disabled bodies—‘I don’t want to be called disabled because people think being disabled is bad’. Whether or not you think that being trans is actually a disability, to counter accusations about trans people being disabled by insisting that trans people are not disabled affirms a distinction between abled/disabled as deserving/undeserving of rights. This attack must be countered by stating that disability does not prevent the right to be treated justly. Being disabled doesn’t make anyone less deserving of being listened to, de-stigmatised or championed. Instead of insisting that trans people don’t belong in the ‘gone wrong’ box, why not argue against the whole idea of people ‘gone wrong’? Why not refuse to play into a binary between normal, healthy people who deserve to be treated well, and abnormal, unhealthy people who deserve to suffer? I’m by no means aiming for the erasure of mental or physical illness or disabilities; illnesses and disabling conditions definitely exist. But the assumption that disability makes you abnormal in a bad way, morally lesser or socially inferior is definitely worth criticising. Let’s try to imagine a world where all bodies are valued and all people are granted human rights by virtue of their inherent humanity, without caveats.
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CONTENT WARNING / mentions of suicide, abusive behaviour
Double Take Kaavya Jha justifies spending seven nights a week watching Love Island
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elevision shows like The Bachelor are as far removed from reality as those promises of waking up early to finish studying the next morning. Despite not necessarily being grounded in the truth, the reality programs that many are quick to dismiss play an important role in capturing our cultural zeitgeist. Lowbrow entertainment has the advantage of not being constrained by the intellectualism or moral codes of conduct that other more polished artforms must follow. By lacking the self-consciousness or subtle nuance that often accompanies highbrow entertainment, it is emboldened by controversy and explicit topics. So, if reality television is really so unconstricted, what is it saying about us as a society? The answer is grim. The ending of The Bachelor Australia 2019 proved the nation was happy to bully a 23-year-old woman, with government agencies like the Australian Bureau of Statistics even taking part in the online mocking. Both Love Island UK 2019 — a show with a track record of participants committing suicide due to cyberbullying — and Love Island Australia 2019 show multiple men gaslighting their partners with little-to-no consequences. And I refuse to dip my toe into the world of Married at First Sight, infamous for its many extremely emotional and physically abusive participants. Despite all this, I enjoy viewing and taking part in the social activity surrounding some of these programs, whether that be watching The Bachelor finale on a home projector with friends, or speedily chatting away in the live threads of Facebook groups (shout out to the Shameless podcast!) for every Love Island episode. I’ve had constructive debates with friends on whether having the black girl being everyone’s last choice in every season of Love Island reveals racism in our dating preferences, and whether it is possible to show positive same sex relationships on these kinds of shows without falling into the trap of queer-bating or performativity. It’s not the audience we need to hold to account but rather the producers behind these programs. Networks engage in a double standard when it comes to abusive behaviour. They sideline duty of care through frequently forcing contrived situations essentially exploiting the participants’ wellbeing by putting them in positions of vulnerability (The Bachelor’s Abbie comes to mind). After
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ART BY REANN LIN
airing, the networks are quick to condemn the actions and the unknowing participant alongside it. This allows the audience to indulge in viewing the ‘bad behaviour’, and then turning around and shaming the television contestants for taking part. Just because an audience might enjoy reality shows infused with emotionally abusive drama, it doesn’t mean they themselves are abusers too. For some of the audience, it implies that they are drawn to watching such cruel acts for entertainment value due to a sense of morbid curiosity. For others, seeing such behaviour leads to furious online discussion and posts angrily shared on timelines and Instagram stories. Controversy encourages outrage, which encourages conversation, which encourages higher viewership and ratings. The ‘right’ thing to do would be not to allow, let alone air, these toxic and abusive behaviours—but then how would they rake in those views? While the networks might argue that they only broadcast the acts as a way of opening up dialogue, there must be a better way to promote healthier relationships without risking the contestants’ mental health. Compared to sporting stars who are arguably greater role models to young children, why are reality television contestants held to a higher standard of behaviour? Australian sportsmen are regularly able to get away with public violence, very serious domestic violence, and all-around racism and discrimination, often without impacting their contracts and careers. Comparing Facebook posts of a sporting star convicted of beating his girlfriend, and a reality television star whose crime was kissing her partner on camera, you’ll find far more vitriol in the comment section of the latter. I don’t care if my Love Island contestants aren’t in it to find the one and instead want to grow their Instagram following. I don’t care if they didn’t go to university or dropped out of high school and are causing the nation to ‘turn stupid’. None of these things should preclude them from being respected as a human being. Perhaps many find a sense of guilty pleasure in watching and making fun of people who seem foolish on television—young women’s hobbies and interests are constantly derided for being trivial and dumb. But if we can instigate healthy conversations across Australia on what it means to do better in our own relationships with partners, friends, and family, then more power to us.
SPRING HAS SPRUNG BY MIRANDA PARK
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PUPPET MAKES THE MONEY BY VICKY HOPE
CREATIVE
Flash Fiction Prompt/Puppets DIY by Stephanie Kee For the body: a twig, perhaps, or a sheet of paper. A head smart enough to never question. To be obedient. To know ancient poetry and not know better. Nose pinched for that high bridge. Smile painted on and sealed with varnish. And don’t forget the strings—impossibly short, impossible to cut. She’ll need the guidance; she can’t stand on her own. There. Look how perfect. Our 娃娃, our puppet, our well-behaved daughter.
Father by Mark Yin You stand there in the doorway while I lie in bed bundled up like a pierrot doll, and you whisper into the darkness of my room without stepping inside. You whisper dreams into my head as I drift off, and when I wake up I can’t tell if they’re mine or yours.
Burn Down by Thirangie Jayatilake Only your parents can find you someone good, they say. It’s not a treasure hunt, it’s like a walk down the aisle in a grocery store. Pick up a product. Because women, they say, have an expiration date. Your biological clock is tick, tick ticking. I dare you. Throw me in the microwave. Set the timer.
ART BY MEERNA YOUSIF
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CONTENT WARNING / alludes to self-harm Sarah plays on the association of colours and words to write her poetry using Taubman’s paint samples from Bunnings.
Purple Folly by Sarah Peters I think my bruises have been self-made, choking on plums considering art a suffering, whispering shadows into beauty. Unfold violets underneath eyes into the shape of words used for belittling in the mirror, I see the hydrangeas in the corner breathing, where I don’t, sitting amongst a galaxy pretending to shine. Line fingernails with amethyst, Spray lavender on my wrists ‘healing powers.’ Mind persists, Stuck in lightning storms waiting for dawns and dusks a moment of ‘okay.’ Back to the mirror, eyes watching thunder clouds dance. No brushing away. Just glass shards and fists. A black eye.
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ART BY LIZZY YU
CONTENT WARNING / inexplicit references to deaths and violence against women
Silver Service by Sarah Peters My watch says it’s time. She’s scratching up knives and forks, polishing boys into men who think diamonds are exchanged for freedom. Overcast days, I am counting my cents wondering if I have any when we are being weaved into statistics 35 women, this year, Count again, Who will never get to be aunts or grandmas. When I pulled out my first grey hair, Stars fell across my fringe delighted that I have made it this far with most of the lights on. I am screaming to the moon who guides me through darkness giving me keys, unlocking futures where we set the cutlery. We are stuck to spiderwebs inside lockets and loopholes followed by men, pulling us closer to the city with its starless sky. Crush sterling down to glitter smothered in seconds: We have one service left.
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ART BY ESME WANG
CREATIVE
114.7°C
by Jiamin (Carmen) Zheng 屁股下面的气球在肆意地膨胀，坐在上面的阿可发着43.2°C的烧。
阿可恐高，但又却被眼前的东西勾了魂，赖在漂浮的气球上面下不来。 更何况就在刚才他忽然看到了时间最美好的那一面。
第五层的落地玻璃窗悄悄保护着一个匿名家庭。 面前垃圾场般的房间里盘腿坐着一对十六七岁的兄妹，两个人驮着背，眼睛眨都不眨地 盯着同一个电视机，四只手吧唧吧唧地玩弄着手控。 不一会儿，房间门从外面打开，一个五十多岁的老男人挺着啤酒肚走进来，一脸得意。 他的右手里捧着个鼓鼓的肯德基纸袋，左手肘随意 的搭在电视机上边。 兄妹俩停下了那二十根忙碌的手指，手控一下撇在一边，有点不耐烦，但又无可救药的一脸贪吃的模样。 老男人深吸了一口气，稍显困难的也盘腿坐下，三个人围在一块幸福的嘻嘻呵呵着。 阿可的体温现在快68°C。 他还没看够。
不知不觉间，气球已经膨胀到足以让阿可偷窥第二十二层办公楼一个打扮精致的短发白领。 她坐在乱桌前，正准备上传一张自己前在冬 天俄罗斯时的一张照片。 她娴熟地上下滑动着手里的屏幕，银边镜框下的两个小眼睛机械般的扫描着，终于选出了跟前后没什么两样的 一张，并点击下一步。
眼镜白领在四种调色之间左右犹豫着，23%的冷色外加75%的色彩对比，数字精准的堪比专制消毒水的白大褂。 她的同事在她身边来来 往往，她已毫无察觉，也已经和她没了关系。 十分钟过去了，点击取消，白领终又回到了眼前一张张文档的现实里。 气球继续膨胀着，乱飘着。
阿可两手撑着气球表面，跪着，姿态像是在乞求什么。 他也许是在祈求得到驾驭气球的能力。 虽为无中生有，却反倒又享受着这种无助逼 迫自己勇敢的感觉。
气球继续把阿可推送到云海之上。 此刻阿可的体温快85度了。 极高的海拔和身上病态的温度让阿可头晕，可他却还是迷恋着眼前莫名其 妙的人情世故。 夜色降临。
阿可继续上升着，直到抵达了灰霾以上还未被污秽的那层星空。
气球下看似温馨的橙黄色的路灯指明了人间七情六欲的所在。 处在上空的阿可揣测着每一生命个体所面对的幸福和痛苦，个个故事说复 杂也复杂，说矫情也矫情。 那又如何？阿可想，我就呆在这里，它们也都够不着我。 96°C。
渐渐的，阿可开始极度缺氧，可是气球还在一如既往的膨胀着，乱飘着，越来越高。 夜晚的云厚的跟棉被似的，埋没了阿可脖子以下所有的 身体。 阿可仰着头张开口呵叱着，像在鱼缸里饥饿的小金鱼。 终于，阿可炽热的皮肤将空心的气球的表皮融化。 103°C。
一下子的，阿可的肉体直线坠落了下来。 场景没有像传说中属于流星的浪漫，也没有古人跳河般悲壮 - 有的只有刺耳的冷风，内心条件反 射的懦弱，夹拌着毫不负责任的自由。 此时阿可的体温114.7°C。
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CREATIVE
Meditation by Luoyang Chen Roaming about a lonesome forest, I see the human’s ideal life through trees: photosynthesizing by day, respiring at night, dancing with winds, singing with rains, entertaining birds, romping with monkeys. I don’t mind if it is an oak tree, a plum tree or a baobab. They are all trees, yet they are very different. I don’t mind if it is an acorn, a plum, or a baobab fruit. They are all fruits. The tree roots in darkness, the top branches are always to the bright side, touch the sky, awhile fly the cloud-kite. Growing twigs, floating, an old dance, an incantation murmuring, summoning. I am walking deep into the forest, intruding into the ceremony— A tree gifts a punch to my face.
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ART BY RAYMOND WU
Cooking Words by Luoyang Chen I’m stuck in here, this kitchen with modern equipment, this electrical appliance peeling clauses, cutting verbs, articles and nouns, mixing with adjectives and adverbs, wrapping in tinfoil. Checking my private recipe: Codeine, Klonopin, Psilocybin… my face glittering, my eyes shivering, my mind modifying the present, this present has been the future and will be the past… Unwrapping the tinfoil, Oops, the intonation of a sentence is overcooked; the content of a sentence is meaningless, the fluency of a sentence is stuck in here, in my tongue: rootless, useless; and still I cook, cook, cook my words to articulate this unpresentable eloquence. I know the word is tasteless, but sometimes I take some Xanax so I overdo a ‘s’, so I become a smith, the word a malleable substance, hammering out a present progressive tense. How’s the taste? You ask me. I spit the word out: Salty.
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A Thing With Feathers by Jocelyn Deane A– I remember—back when we lived in England—the kissing gates in the fields to prevent livestock escaping, to let humans move between the lots. The gate is a metal swing door on a post, within a triangle/semicircle, that to push with brute force clangs it against the radius of the two containing sides. The idea is you hold the gate ajar, squeeze through the opening, and keep holding it for the other, your faces within kissing distance as you navigate the temporary crack of empty, free space, your hands on the bannister. Or someone could do this for you, not follow, and your faces/hands’ closeness—never meeting; the closest could be a kiss in the air around each other’s cheek—would become a kind of transaction. As if to say yes, briefly, we’ve filled this space, now it’s emptying again. With family, I used to visit the Jurassic Coast Museum, unearthed in the repurposed storage closet of a pub right 54
ART BY VAN ANH CHU
next to the Channel. Here in this jar are Kinder Surprise toys salvaged from the MSC Napoli beached at Sidmouth, along the Jurassic coast, Britain’s first natural world heritage site. The first ichthyosaur skeletons were unearthed here by Mary Anning, before the idea of prehistory. We are staying there before we emigrate to look for ammonites; our family would watch Walking with Dinosaurs on BBC One saying, out of all the fantastic sites, oh that’s Dorset where Granny Mary is. That’s nearby. It shouldn’t take long to travel. Across in a glass cabinet, three paper tags read: Pliosaur/femur or/ humerus. After flotsam from the MSC Napoli began washing up at Branscombe—including 17 BMW R1200RT motorcycles, empty wine casks, nappies, perfume and miscellaneous car parts in water/erosion-proof containers—200 people or more went to scavenge the remains1. After initially
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tolerating a “salvage free-for-all” for a week or so, the coastal police said the activity “was despicable”, closed the beach, and announced that they would use navel powers not enacted for 100 years, since Queen Victoria’s death, to force people to return goods they had retrieved without informing the authorities2. We are driving to Lyme Regis where the ammonites in the London Natural History Museum were first dredged from the chalk/limestone strata. I’m being a know-it-all, saying NO, ammonites are totally different from nautiluses. Their outer shells are much lighter and more spiral-y. There’s a little cat-flap thing for their tentacles. Before Walking with Dinosaurs existed, we used to watch a pseudo-documentary about the museum, in which a teenage girl is left in the sauropod exhibit at night. She meets Sir Richard Owen, the museum’s founder and denier of natural selection, and—wearing 3D glasses—watches the computer-animated skeletons blink to life. The VCR box advertises this is the same technology used in Terminator 2, to animate the T1000 flowing like water through narrow seams, their hands changing into blades/fulcrums to prise apart the sediment layers of bodies, as if they were digital fossils. It was used in another James Cameron movie—The Abyss—in which a sentient, alien column of water mimics the faces of the cast, perfectly, by the standards of late 90s CGI. The dinosaurs rendered in the film are not yet feathered, as we now know dinosaurs were. The last thing you remember, before leaving the UK, was a field. Dorset in the rain smells so alive. The hole in the earth big as a star, light slithering from the mulch like a treasure hoard. You asked who the bones belonged to. “It’s a cow, bunny, an unusual cow.” We leave shortly afterwards. B– The party returns to Sigil, the city of doors, at a loose end. Emily Dickinson returns to her anarchist bookshop. In the game universe, maybe two weeks have passed, though we started playing in October. Recently a friend shared Facebook images of abandoned, Roman-style mansions somewhere in Europe with me. The marble floor and walls are wreathed in vines and dead leaves, there’s a crack in everything, the faux-classical statuary wait forlornly. It’s almost lying, my friend says, like once capitalism is gone 1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/6287457.stm
2
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/6290887.stm
the world will be made green again. More likely, they say, the plants will be carnivorous, selected to survive on little sun or oxygen, with razor-sharp brambles. I remember our first D&D session, pulling an imaginary child out of a sentient thicket. The more time passes, the more cold air inhabits the house of Emily Dickinson, the character you’ve performed. I imagine there are memorabilia of different sessions/joyful moments: the time we fight a whisky elemental and set it on fire, our arrival in the Faewild, the imaginary door Emily Dickinson tries to conjure back to a Massachusetts, an enabling fiction for character development. Or when she makes contact with a life-spirit in the Faewild grass, which co-habits in her arm thereafter, and the dream she has that night: an oak-tree, in the garden of her family house, and she is not sure which part of the tree she is, that reminds me of the end of a Yeats poem: O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? There’s an attic which is filled with what could be imagined for Emily Dickinson, her backstory and personality upon finding herself in an Alice-in-Wonderland style scenario. I imagine those things with a thin film of dust, and the windows open to the huge clouds. C– In this photo John McTaggart, the Cambridge Idealist philosopher, is explaining the unreality of time to a 1908 audience. Time consists of two main phenomenological series, they say: A and B. The A series consists of past, present, future, unmoving, transfixed. The B series is relational: a moment is earlier than, later than, or happening at the same time right now as another, right now, right now. A third series—C—is an ordering of events only. We may start with the heat-death of the universe, or ammonites washing up along what will be called the UK’s Jurassic Coast, but at some point the two lines will cross each other. The glass breaking or the glass reforming in your hands. Both seeming— inadvertently—to converge on the point of contact between glass and ground.
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ART BY MONIQUE O’RAFFERTY
BREAKING
Fairytale Gazette currently fighting restrictions and intimidation tactics
T
he Fairytale Gazette has received an unprecedented amount of responses regarding last week’s article. Since the article was published the palace has released a statement outlined below: “The criticism targeting the royal family after a very serious case of identity theft is entirely unfounded and unfair. Many of the allegations of human rights abuses have been fabricated, are unfounded and unfair. The palace will not tolerate the skewing of the Princess’ story by any organisation, including that of the media, which has been concocted just for scandalous material. We reject the claims that the execution of the servant girl had no foundation, and the stories circulating are only adding to the traumatic experience that our princess had endured. We request that any such discussion or gossip end and any further queries regarding the story will be ignored.” A royal whistle-blower (wishing to remain anonymous) contacted the Fairytale Gazette soon after the statement to warn us that in some leaked correspondence they have received, the Gazette is on the list of publications that may be suppressed or have their archives raided by the authorities. The statement has concerned and galvanised some of our readership as well as the wider public who have taken to the streets in protest against these new measures—some seen as verging on tyrannical.
Although the authorities has yet acted against the Gazette, smaller publications such as The Transcriptions—who were planning to publish some suppressed court documents regarding the Golden Queen (“R v the Golden Queen”) and facing contempt of court charge—have found themselves gripped by the new restrictions placed by the royals. They did however manage to send through the documents before their databases were wiped by the authorities which we will be publishing in their stead. Such actions have not turned the public to violence as the protests are still peaceful, but we remind our readership that while debate is always encouraged, inciting violence on the streets is not. Therefore, due to popular demand, we are publishing some of the responses we have collected so frustrations are let out on the page rather than the world, which is our stage. We will not be held accountable for any dragons that are let loose because some people cannot control themselves. The views here do not necessarily reflect the Fairytale Gazette’s. We maintain our journalistic integrity and assure our readership of our objectivity. We also are publishing The Transcription’s documents to show our independence and that we are continuing our inquiries into stories that concern our readership.
REPORT
Transcription under oath R v The Queen POTENTIAL CHARGES Breach of privacy (surreptitious spying) Breach of confidence/ agreement/ contract JUSTICE: Please state your name for the record. R: I refuse. JUSTICE: Sir, you’d dare defy the authority of this court? R: I still refuse. I won’t speak it under the roof of her precious majesty’s court. JUSTICE: You could be filed for disobeying this court. A charge of contempt you understand. R: Have you seen any other manikins around here? JUSTICE: A few. How is this relevant? R: Then you’d understand how important it is for us to keep our names secret. JUSTICE: If it should please you, we will impose a pseudonym order so that your name won’t be revealed under the public domain. THE GOLDEN QUEEN: With all due respect your honour, I’d like to argue that his name is of great public interest to the kingdom JUSTICE: Explain. THE GOLDEN QUEEN: Well…Isn’t it vital that we can 58
/ ART AND LAYOUT BY TIFFANY WIDJAJA
track who is going around the kingdom, to protect any… vulnerable people? Particularly young people… like, um a baby for example? A name is required to do so, is it not? JUSTICE: I’m afraid that is an unsatisfactory explanation your majesty. R: She’s afraid to admit the truth aren’t you your majesty? THE PUBLIC: Stop goading our queen you little monster! JUSTICE: Order please. What is this you’re saying about truth? R: Should I tell them all your majesty, or will you spill your little ‘secret’? THE GOLDEN QUEEN: I will not stoop to answer that. R: That’s right. The golden queen, too golden. Were you born or made like that? JUSTICE: I believe you were in the witness box when I last looked and not the queen. Reserve your questions for later. BY ALISON FORD /
CREATIVE
Woof by Luke Patitsas when someone asks what I want to be when I grow up I respond a dog confused, they ask why? although dogs can be cute and dogs can be loyal their species limits their capacity to excel and I respond I have never seen a being an entity more content than my dog returning from a shit
ART BY LUCY WILLIAMS
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ART BY VINEETHA LIZ BABU
CREATIVE
R ‘n’ R by Naomi Sepiso An application of brakes at the end of a long journey rewind, unwind, find yourself in the time left for rest and response. Remove yourself from situations that called for an extreme outpour of energy, exerted to keep oneself alive constant fight between body and soul. Find rest for we do not know the battles of tomorrow. Welcome peace into the home of your soul, rest in the hope that you one day may see yourself the way I see you the way you truly are. Respond to your needs. Your soul cries for it has not seen the sun in a while. Respond to unwelcome emotions that stormed your vessel— talk to them tell them there are no vacancies they are not for you. Allow that which does not belong in your heart to find its way out. Find love. Tell her you are sorry for giving her to everyone but yourself. Tell her you need her to breathe life into you again; to fill your heart. Feel the warmth of her embrace. Rest, for this fight is won.
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ART BY ANJANA RAM
CREATIVE
Gums by Jamisyn Gleeson Brown yuck muck stuff stuck in teeth, gums. Piles of waxen sludge refuse to budge why don’t you nudge away the mucous with viper words, toothpicks. Your fungus begins to age inside its new porcelain cage because dental work doesn’t always rid rot.
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ARABIDOPSIS ROOT BY ISAAC LANGFORD
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ART BY TIMOTHY WOOD
CREATIVE
The Open Night by W.D. Farnsworth I feel myself in the open night Planting woad and chicory, They are familiar with each other’s ways You, this forgotten shadow, That rests in a flowering memory Is the kiss of root and berry. Because they muttered words; Language mixed with libido I’m unable to see you closely: These shadows in the thunderbolts Beckon in full bloom. Growing rare in the torment Now living, loving, spent. We are born, forever in the shadows.
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COLUMN
See You Later, Space Cowboy by Luke Rotella
“S
ee you later, space cowboy,” says the girl with no name as shapes begin to lose form. The words resonate as they pass through Annalise’s sunken mind but like a shooting star; disappearing into the void as quickly as they came. Entangled in light and distant imagery; glimpses of memory become her reality only to feel as though she’s woken up from a cloudy dream when her mind returns to the golden archways of the Grand Archive. “See you later, space cowboy.” Her mind withers to a stump; it sucks every drop of knowledge that it can like a dying tree clinging to water. But those five words take shape as a painting in a gallery, eternal and immortalised in her rotting mind. Rarely does she ever perceive more than passing colours and the inkling of a feeling or emotion, and she lacks the self-awareness to try. Like a character in a dream where someone else is the dreamer, Annalise fulfils their narrative purpose. But when the dreamer wakes up, her mind is left imprisoned in the gallery. “See you later, space cowboy.” A tear runs down the girl with no name’s face. Looking deep into the rough, hasty strokes that make up the painting Annalise is lifted into a dream of a marble staircase encased in a dark and narrow path upwards towards a worn mahogany door. Weathered wood splinters and protrudes like thorns on a rose; protecting its sophisticated, Victorian elegance from passing vagabonds. In darkness, everything behind the vagabonds disappears faster than stairs falling into place in front of them. The only thing that remains constant is the swinging pull light in the distance, illuminating the vague image of a door and a collection of misplaced antique furniture beside a turntable. A warm fuzz reverberates down the narrow path giving the further illusion of a homeward journey as The Caretaker’s ‘An Empty Bliss Beyond This World’ spins slowly around a worn-down needle. Occasionally, the door creaks ajar and a black shadow like an oily stain rips itself from the doorway. Its limbs slender and frail and its shape irrational, it crawls towards the table using its arms like crutches. A black mist sprays from a limb and converges in the shape two fingers, which it swipes across a dusty surface of the polished, malachite table. An ear-piercing screech is emitted as the creature shakes its head at the absence of dust in his finger’s trail. “My oh my, the caretaker—where has he gone off to this time?” The creature sometimes says, “my beloved malachite table has been left to rot. I see through his absence this time; a doily placed atop the dust only masks what needs to be done. Albeit the doily compliments the room but that is beside the point. Yes, beside the point.” The creature slithers its way to the red velvet armchair, slumps itself down and carefully listens to the mixture of dread and apathy evoked by the music as it massages its head methodically with its two fingers. As the record comes to a close, the creature lifts the needle and returns it back to the beginning before disappearing back into the world behind the door. The door is left ajar by the creature and a glimpse of a quiet, sunny day seeps through: an empty green pasture beside a cobbled road. The wind gently blows a yellow sheet on an iron clothes line. A man in a straw hat and sweat-soaked wife-beater looks past the road into the patch of sunflowers which are dancing to a melancholic tune. As their golden limbs rub against each other he thinks about Maestro; the odd old man who ran the bar beneath the hill.
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ART BY MONIQUE O’RAFFERTY
“Time has already been created and destroyed,” Maestro would say, “our brains are too small to take in all that information, so it’s doled it out in a way that we can process it.” Strange old cook, the man in the straw hat would think, then his mind would turn to beer. This thought would often coincide with the clambering of horses in the sky above his cabin at 3:04:56pm every day. Sweat would drip through his hair and down his narrow face as he’d give a reserved wave to the crowned man in the chariot. Poor bastard, the man would think as his mind returned to Maestro. “I take pity on Helios, I really do,” Maestro would always tell the man, “for what use is godhood if you’re condemned to a task that’s almost Sisyphean?” The bar flies would look up at Maestro with furrowed brows before returning their gazes to the ripples in their gin. Maestro didn’t mind, he knew that the flies’ minds were as cloudy as the smoke-filled air, as he would watch them tap their feet in tandem to Sinatra’s ‘Summer Wind’. It was therapeutic and it was why Maestro fixed the jukebox to only play his favourite Sinatra tracks. “Sinatra is an old fuck! When the fuck are you gonna fix this goddamn fuckin’ jukebox?” Frankie would scream out with a smoky glass of warm gin in his left hand and a service station cigar in his right. Maestro holds his hands up to his chin, thinking deeply about the nature of reality as the flies return their gaze to their gin; now rippling to the beat of ‘Fly Me To The Moon’. “Fly Me To The Moon, let me play among the stars… Let me see what Spring is like on Jupiter and Mars,” Murukami quietly recites to himself: half singing, half humming. He sits on the far end of the counter in darkness, sipping a warm cider. “Fill my heart with song, let me sing forever more,” he mouths as he observes the strange bar. As he scans the room, he exchanges a look with Maestro. “Say,” Murukami says, “this really is quite a bar Maestro, this really is quite a bar!” Maestro adjusts the lapels on his white tuxedo seemingly out of habit. “Thank you, Mr. Murukami. It reassures me that someone like you can find solace in such an obscure place.” Murukami jolts his head up as he never remembers telling Maestro his name. “In other words, please be true,” sings Frankie by the Jukebox. Like a light on a warm summer night, the flies are drawn towards him. He performs through the fog of smoke and vapour with his eyes wide and his legs shaking like a deer caught in headlights. Murukami and Maestro click their fingers as Frankie pours his words through an upside-down, empty bottle of bourbon. His hips move like a turning cog as the flies delve into a deep trance. “In other words, please be true,” Frankie sings as shapes begin to lose form.
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KOKILA BY ANJANA RAM
BOXED UP THOUGHTS BY ANJANA RAM
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CREATIVE
3rd Person by Jemma Payne I’ll tell it as a story, then. Do you want me to tell it as a story? I’m not saying she’s slow slow but she’s lazy slow. This woman walks in, she runs the hairdresser I go to that’s how I know about her, she looked about 30 or 27 or something.
Most of don’t agree she should be doing what she’s doing.
us
She’s making out she’s the only person who does what she does. I know a single mother who’s a friend and she’s got
5
of them.
it’s like, if someone proposed to
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me like
ART BY MORGAN-LEE SNELL
that
,
I wouldn’t say yes. there’s too many cures for all the illnesses In comes one of those American backpackers on a trip all round the world— one beer on the weekend they had. and within days of finding this tree, it was a thousand years old, they burnt it down, bitch. It’s been a year and a half. Move the fuck on. this person was pointing out this teensy weensy flower, it was a b o u t this big
And then she was like, “So maybe if I went inside the Easter egg, I’ll have all that room inside the Easter egg too.”
-- that’s the last cup of coffee I’ll be having with her, I can assure you. hits you and then you do
The moment of madness all of a sudden you can’t turn the tap off
it and
she was going backwards b
ackwards
b a c k w a r d s
and then she went
that way
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CREATIVE
CONTENT WARNING / themes of self-harm, mental and physical illness, intergenerational sexual shame
Is my nature a mother that holds me? by Jasmine Rhodes Part I. Garden Today I went back to the garden with intentions of digging the earth I imagined it hard dry resistant a barricade to the cut of a blade but I found there a layer of leaves a coating like a mesh a blanket a wrapping I peeled them away like I peeled my skin The care I gave all those last seasons reveals tender flesh not hardened or dry but a sponge some resistance bones growing bones breaking but soft becoming The care I gave me soaked through my veins to transpire a knowing of ease And now that I meet you and question myself I know I am giving in every season the water the tending to peel back the surface revealing the tender exposed to be ok again.
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ART BY SIMRAN KAUR
Part II. Vessels The vessel and the held container contained I thought we would mother together but I became yours and if you consider my body a holobiont should you consider its bugs? consider its room, its blankets and bed? its weights and tiredness? its shame? I’m dying every season like these flowers wilt and dry to crumble into the nothing that I want to be able to be I think of my molecules, born of hers scrubbing skin nine months’ rent paid I left.
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CREATIVE
Part III. Mother Today I returned and we spoke of our bodies their filth and dirt and scent of earth how they disgusted our lovers repulsed my father but they were tolerated; purified and cleansed You’d never really thought about it did you not have the time? too busy birthing to be able to heal I dig, dirt under nail sand in tooth silt under foot as I sink into disgust just as they made us Perhaps, now, you can lick your wounds and taste yourself and know yourself in ways they didn’t want to know you and they made it hard to walk from the day you were born so you dragged your body across the barb-covered ground and now you’re weak so we sit and talk and you’d never really thought about it.
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ART BY SIMRAN KAUR
Part IV. Nature Circles, concentric and eccentric and tangent boundaries subside they want us to be mothers amenable containable and they call you by that name mother; fantasizable Today the air is thick like flesh pulling body’s particles that dissipate melting chest face spine dissolves contents of stomach contents of heart diffuse The sky is dark there’s sleep in my eyes the rain-fog soaks my body through like a pile of mulch on the roadside porous but not rotting to feed water to new life permeable Is my nature a mother that holds me, or a body that shows me to hold myself?
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COLUMN
THE CREATIVE LITERATURE AND WRITING SOCIETY PRESENTS: THE REMARKABLE QUESTS OF RADDISH AND QUILL
Voyage to the Stars by Marcie Di Bartolomeo
R
addish was slumped asleep on the library floor, exhausted from an all-night knitting session. Though Quill couldn’t help but admire the cat’s commitment to their craft—and the lovely new rainbow scarf that had been produced from it—they still had a lot of tidying to do. And so, taking a quill from their coat of feathers, they hovered it over Raddish’s nose. A huff and a puff and a great big sneeze later, Raddish was on their feet, eyes fully alert and nose slightly twitching. “What was that for Quill? I was in such a wonderful dream. I was flying in the sky, and there was the most lovely flock of yarn to chase. It was so amazing, so amazing...” Quill could feel Raddish slipping back into the realm of dreams and flicked the loose quill across Raddish’s nose. “No no, not that again please. I’m awake, definitely awake.” “Good. There’s still more work to be done. Surely you haven’t forgotten Tinda?” Raddish jolted up at the sound of Tinda’s name. Though now a friend, their very name still sparked a little inkling of fear in Raddish’s heart. “Yeah, Tinda… well, at least they didn’t devour our souls. And we had a super fun dinner with them.” Quill sighed. “That may be so, but we still have a lot to clean up. I still can’t even find my occult tomes, the poor little things. They must be so lost and alone without me… GOSH DARN IT WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY?!” Raddish was all too familiar with such erratic outbursts, often born out of stress and a complete lack of self-care. They placed a paw on Quill’s shoulder. “Hey now, we can clean the rest of this up later. For now
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I think we deserve a break. How about an adventure!” “All our recent adventuring is what got us into this mess in the first place!” said Quill. “I don’t mean just any old adventure, my old friend. How about an adventure… IN THE STARS!” Before Quill could even begin to protest this rather out there idea, Raddish was dragging them outside by the wing. “How exactly are we going to space? We don’t have a way of getting there. We certainly don’t have a way of breathing out there! And we know almost nothing of space! What if it’s dangerous? What kind of absurd absurdity is this?!” Before Quill could continue their stream of worry wart-esque worries, Raddish held up a paw to their beak and shushed them reassuringly. “It’ll be okay. Firstly—and you can thank Peppermint and Old Mr. Jack Lee for this—I got us some fairy dust that will not only allow us to fly in space, but breathe and speak in it too.” Holding up a little red sack filled to the brim with golden fairy dust, Raddish grinned. “And besides, we’re constantly faced with the unknown on our adventures. How is space any different?” Quill stared at the red sack of fairy dust, then at Raddish, then back to the sack, and finally back to Raddish. Sighing, they smiled a slight smile. “Well alright, I suppose we can go--” “Wundebah!” Raddish exclaimed, already spraying the fairy dust all over Quill and themself. Grabbing Quill by the wing, they proceeded to jump up into the sky, flying right through the many layers of atmosphere covering their planet, and into the cosmos above. Raddish and Quill glided through space, taking notice
of all the great celestial bodies that orbited their distant sun. Pinks, blues, purples, reds—they seemed like a great big set of rainbow marbles. Raddish batted at streams of stardust and giggled with glee as it started circulating them, glowing and glistening before fading away into space. Quill could only sigh and smile. Eventually they spotted a blue and green planet much like their own, only with much more green than blue. “Interesting,” said Quill, quite bemused. “Do you think this planet has more land than our own?” “Personally I think the colours are reversed,” said Raddish. “Like the water is green, and the land is blue. And maybe the planet is inhabited by insects, like slugs, or grasshoppers!” “I’m sure there are many mysteries regarding this fascinating planet. Almost as many as the great cosmos around us. So very… fascinating...” “Let’s explore the planet!” said Raddish eagerly. “Most indubitably,” said Quill. Gliding down towards the planet, they found a small strip of land, populated by a few blue-green mounds of leaves, and several grasshoppers. Raddish was beaming from ear to ear. “I knew it! There are grasshoppers here! Let’s go!” “Wait, Raddish!” But before Quill could stop them, Raddish was already rapidly flying down to meet the grasshoppers. Joining them in pursuit, Quill landed shortly after Raddish, who they were startled to find was gasping for air. Looking around, Quill could only gasp as well. The grasshoppers upon closer inspection were roughly twice the size of the questers. And the blue green mounds appeared to be giant huts, twice the size of the questers’ treehouse. Each hut was surrounded by great blue-green trees, and purple flowers almost as large as the grasshoppers themselves. One of the tallest grasshoppers leapt towards them. Quill gulped, their eyes bulging with apprehension. After inspecting the pair for a bit, the grasshopper smiled and extended their long hand-like appendage. “How do you do? I’m Karel, chief of the Hoppers here. Welcome to Hops, capital of our fine planet Hoplos.” Sighing a sigh of relief, Quill extended their wing (and Raddish their paw) and shook Chief Karel’s hand. But then Quill realised something. “Wait, how can we understand you? We’re aliens to you, surely our languages would be different.” Karel laughed. “Our languages may differ, but I can speak telepathically to you. I’m doing so right now in fact. Notice my mouth isn’t moving.” After a moment Raddish and Quill realised that yes, aside from their prior bout of laughter, Karel’s mouth indeed hadn’t opened at all. “We are also masters of language, and can understand any lifeform’s manner of speaking after a quick scan of their mind. So rest assured, curious lifeforms by the names of Raddish and Quill, there are no language barriers; we can perfectly understand each other.” Raddish’s eyes widened, elated by the presence of such friendly extraterrestrials who, aside from their large size and telepathic powers, seemed not too out of the ordinary. Quill meanwhile was less convinced.
“That may be so Karel, but how can we trust you? We just met, and we know nothing about you. Plus you scanned our minds, which I feel is a bit of a violation of our privacy, and now you know a lot about us. Do you happen to have any ulterior motives? Because I’m suspecting several.” Karel stared down at the two of them for a moment, then over to their people, who were watching intensely yet timidly from the sidelines. Sighing, Karel knelt down, and reached out to Quill’s shoulder reassuringly. “Firstly we do not probe your mind for sacred details—only things like name, language, where you come from, and a few things here and there to piece together your personalities. A lot of your adventures seeped in too though; you both have lived quite colourful lives I must say. You are correct however: we do have plans involving you two, but nothing immoral or even morally grey. Merely the fulfilment of an age old prophecy.” “Age old prophecy?” Raddish and Quill gasped. “That is correct.” Karel said. “Centuries ago our society suffered many wars and our once thriving Hub of Creativity was lost. But it has been foretold that a pair of interstellar creatures—a boisterous cat with a rainbow scarf, and a raven with a slight chip on their shoulder—would come and revive our dead creative arts, and that our community would soon prosper again.” Raddish and Quill could not believe it. They were involved in a prophecy? In space? Not even Quill could stop themself from smiling. Raddish was outright jumping for joy—the still-active fairy dust turning their jumps into great leaps and bounds. Karel smiled, a reassured look in their eyes. “I take it you will help us out, dear Raddish and Quill of the cosmos?” Quill nodded. “Show us where we can begin.” “Yeah, show us, show us!” said Raddish, still hopping and jumping. “I can’t thank you two enough. Three cheers for the remarkable questers, Raddish and Quill!” And so the Hoppers cheered as they led the interstellar questers to the soon to be revived Hub of Creativity.
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DOODLE STATION BY THE MEDIA COLLECTIVE
FOR AND AGAINST: Eyebrows For by Katherine Anastasatos
I
magine the terror of one day arriving home, opening up Snapchat to rant to your friends about your first-world problems, flicking to a filter that instructs you to ‘raise your eyebrows’ in order to activate it, and… nothing happens. No cute furry ears, no amusing spectacles, no floating pink hearts; just your own lifeless, bleary-eyed face staring back at you. All because you have no eyebrows to raise. The horror! Snapchat crises notwithstanding, eyebrows are a vital part of human expression and communication. One raised eyebrow might express scepticism; two raised eyebrows might express shock; eyebrows that are dancing up and down all around the forehead signify Emilia Clarke is really, really excited. Evolutionarily speaking, eyebrows are also there to keep our eyes clean and clear. For all you fitness enthusiasts who prefer to take the stairs in Redmond Barry while I contentedly ride the elevator, the reason the sweat from your forehead doesn’t drip into your eyes and cloud your vision is because of your eyebrows. You know who would have benefited from eyebrows? Voldemort. Now, I’m not claiming that a lack of bushy brows was the reason for his demise, but if Voldemort truly wanted to dispose of Harry Potter as a threat, some pointy pencil brows (think Gwen Stefani circa 1999) against his other frightening features would have had The Boy Who Lived cowering in a corner. But for real, you don’t have to take a long browse through the internet to know that even if brows come in all shapes and styles, most which are usually tragic (the Instagrammer who turned her eyebrows into the Nike logo will further remain unmentioned), we are all the better for having them. A simple glance at the collages of celebrities Photoshopped without eyebrows proves this—they are all cursed images and cannot be unseen. The great abyss between Angelina Jolie’s eyes and hairline when you edit out her arched brows reminds me of my sleep paralysis demon. While eyebrows can be a pain to maintain, and most of us will sadly never know the joy of having eyebrows “on fleek”, it’s better than the alternative.
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ART BY CAROLYN HUANE
Against by Katherine Scott
E
yebrows are nothing but pressure. Those two hairy caterpillars above your eyes incite chaos from the moment you’re born. They’re like little traitors on your face, giving away all your private thoughts. Thought you were subtle when you were checking out that girl in your stats class? Your eyebrows are laughing cruelly; the way Jim Carrey does in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Subtle? Think again champ. I typed the word ‘eyebrow’ into Google, hoping to be won over by sleek images of Kybrows or glossy Anastasia Beverly Hills products. After all, who’d be crazy enough to write an article that did anything but worship eyebrows? They’ve become so trendy that in the totally legit competition for Snazziest Facial Hair of 2019, beards have been suspected of doping and moustaches have declared eyebrows their ‘arch enemy.’ However, my quick brows (sorry), revealed ‘eyebrow shaming’ was the third highest Google search result. On a planet where Netflix exists, why on earth are people spending time searching for things like eyebrow shaming? Suddenly I was hooked, what other wild brow related searches would start popping up? I began a hair-raising journey down the Reddit-hole. Among the anarchy of trends —the squiggle brows, the plaited brows, the Christmas tree brows—I found a particularly scintillating article titled ‘Are Thick Eyebrows a Sign That You’re a Narcissist?’ That’s when I decided I’d had enough Internet for the day. You might think I’m exaggerating, but go ahead and type in ‘eyebrow trends’ on the interwebz. The first dazzling images you’ll see will be the halo brow (terrifying), the feathered brow, and my personal favourite—the high heel brow. Just in case you need to kick ass with your…uh…forehead. It’s like Lindsay Lohan says; the limit does not exist. However, I’d never deny that self-expression is beautiful, so I guess you do you, pal. Sometimes my fear of developing a monobrow prompts me into action and I begin to pay attention to my brows. But the maintenance, oh, the MAINTENANCE! Just one wrong move with a pair of tweezers and they’re too skinny—suddenly it’s 2004 and you’re wearing a tie as a belt and Juicy Couture tracksuits. No, to heck with the brows I say. Shave them off and live a peaceful, smooth, expressionless life. In the words of the esteemed Lady Gaga, can’t read my, can’t read my, no he can’t read my poker face.
TORII TO TORII BY RAYMOND WU