2023 Edition Two

Edition Two 2023

“Online Self-Paid Internships”: A Springboard Or a Trap?

Churan Zhang p. 20

Adult Teeth

Hugo Russell p. 40

FEATURED ARTIST MEDIA X WOMEN'S

Creative: Sophia Zikic p. 46

Design: Jane Goh p. 48

Written by the Farrago Editors

As this edition hits the stands, Farrago will have been published at the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne, on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, for 98 years.

It is, as we often like to point out, the oldest student publication in ‘’Australia.’’

This is true, but it means nothing if it is parrotted without crediting, respecting and reflecting on the unquantifiably immense traditions of First Nations storytelling and artistry that exist across the continent and continue to thrive today, predating us and the entirety of colonial ‘’Australian’’ culture and media by millennia upon millennia.

A mere acknowledgement of this fact—that we owe an immense creative debt to these traditions, the sovereign peoples that continue them, and the Country from which they are drawn—would be woefully inadequate.

Because acknowledgement without sincere and critical reflection on our own role—both as individual settlers and as editors of a publication with an established platform—in the ongoing destruction wrought by the settler-colonial system is nothing but lip service.

The uncomfortable reality is that whilst we can take Farrago’s 98-year history and point to many instances where this publication has taken a stand against injustice, oppression, and colonialism, we must also point to the countless times in which we have done the very opposite.

Being the oldest student publication in a settler-colony also means we’ve had the most time to, at various points, either uncritically reinforce its injustices, or make ourselves self-appointed champions against them. Rarely have we ceded our soapbox to First Nations students to make use of our platform as only they know how best to do.

As a small part of the media landscape in this settler colony, the least we can do in acknowledging the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which we live and work is to ground that acknowledgement in a commitment to use our platform to elevate the voices of First Nations students, and cede the floor to them on matters regarding their sovereignty.

We pay our respects to the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung, Yorta Yorta, and Dja Dja Wurrung people as the True Custodians of the lands on which the University of Melbourne stands, and Farrago is distributed, and extend that respect to the True Custodians of all the lands on which it is being read, and all First Nations readers and contributors.

20 The Great Debate: The AUKUS Pact

Oly Woodrow Kyle, Kieran Kell, Ngaire Bogemann and Jack Walton

60 Oranges

29

self-liberation through self-destruction

Mira Manghani

32 Maybe Peter Pan was an Axolotl iana abrigo

ART

13 Featured Art

Taya Lily

56 Featured Art Taya Lily

PHOTOGRAPHY

53 Featured Photography

Brian Schatteman

Sasha Bolster

COLUMNS

11 Different Perspectives

Luyao Shi

26 About in Melbourne

Meg Bonnes

30 As It Was: Worth Its Weight In Gold

Nicole

33 There is Something in the Water: The Dolls in the Dollhouse

Donna Ferdinando

34 The Unauthorised, Unorthodox, Unofficial Guide to Writing a Novel Under the

70

Yicheng Xu

Body Mania Helena Pantsis

Zhuzhu Xie

Piechowicz

Samson Cheung

Selina Zhang

Stephanie Umbrella

Thalia Blackney

Thomas Gilbert

CREATIVE SUBEDITORS

Annabelle Brown

Breana Galea

Pamela Piechowicz

Sebastian Moore

Velentina Boulter REVIEWS WRITERS

Alexia Shaw

Chelsea Daniel

David Nawaratne

Dimple Malhotra

Maehula Datta

Michael Sadegi

Smiriti Hosur

Yuyang (Angela) Liu

Yuyang (Kevin) Sun

FODDER BLOG TEAM

Bella Farrelly

Lily @galatea.x Thalia Blackney

Lawler COLUMNISTS

Le Blond

Hartnett

Ru Lee GRAPHIC COLUMNISTS

Pantsis

Shi

Xie ONLINE COLUMNISTS

Charlie Simmons

Chloe Pigneguy

Ern Syn Lee

Felicity Smith

Harvey Weir

Holly Mcpherson

Ilnaz Faizal

Isobel Connor-Smithyman

Jaz Thiele

Katelyn Samarkovski

Katrina Bell

Ledya Khamou

Livia Kurniawan

Mako Fujise Barnsley

Marcie Di Bartolomeo

Mary Hampton

Matthew Lee

Mia Pahljina

Nalini Jacob-Roussety

Olivia Brewer

Romany Murray

Ruth Jarra

Sybilla George

NON-FICTION SUBEDITORS

Annabelle Brown

Anushka Mankodi

Bella Farrelly

Breana Galea

Catherine Tootell

Charlie Simmons

Isabel Charlton

Jaime Tan

Judith Vu

Joel Duggan

Mary Hampton

Ola Wallis

Samson Cheung

Sara Vojdani

Tina Thakrar

Virosca Gan

STAFF WRITERS

Claudia Goundar

Donna Ferdinando

Edward Carrick

Elizabeth Browne

Georgia York

iana abrigo

Jordan Fenske

Emma Xerri

Indy Smith

Isabel Charlton

Joanne Zou

Judith Vu

Katelyn Samarkovski

Linh Pham

Sybilla George Tah Ai Jia

Tharidi Walimunige

Vanshika Agarwal

Victoria Winata

ILLUSTRATORS

Alexi O'Keefe

Amber Liang

Arielle Vlahiotis

Ashlea Banon

Crystal Wu

Duy D

Emma Bui

Felicity Yiran Smith

Harriet Chard

Indy Smith

Jacques CA

Jessica Norton

Jocelyn Soetanto

Lauren Kimber

Leilani Leon

Lucy Chen

Manyu Wang

Meg Bonnes

Nashitaat Islam

Nina Hughes

Rachel

Radhika Paralkar

Thao Duyen (Jennifer)

Tina Tao

Nguyen Zhuzhu Xie

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Gaius Kwong

Jennifer Nguyen

Nashitaat Islam

Nhat Duy Dang

Zhuzhu Xie

PHOTO & VIDEO TEAM

Adrian Wong

Alain Nguyen

Catherine Tootell

Claudia Goundar

Dimple Malhotra

Harrison George

Issy Abe-Owensmith

Ilnaz Faizal

Jessica Fanwong

Joanne Zou

Katelyn Samarkovski Marcie

Di Bartolomeo

Romany Murray

SATIRE TEAM

Alexia Shaw

Charlie Robinson

Julie/Jules Song

iana abrigo

SOCIAL MEDIA

Amelia Han

Bella Farrelly

Charlotte Chang

Elizabeth Browne

Katelyn Samarkovski

Maehula Datta

Nashitaat Islam

This magazine is made from 100% recycled paper. Please recycle this magazine after use.

Farrago is the newspaper of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU). Farrago is published by the General Secretary. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of UMSU.

If you want to raise an issue within the union and with the university, please contact the President and General Secretary. president@union.unimelb.edu.au secretary@union.unimelb.edu.au

Max Dowell

Nicholas Eastham

Rico Sulamet

Kien-ling Liem

Meagan Hansen

Mira Manghani

Ben Levy

Chenyi (Yolanda) Liang

Karen Kan

Content Warning: References to panic attacks and death

EDITORIAL

“Something's coming, so out of breath

I just kept spinning and I danced myself to death”

From the song ‘Choreomania’ by Florence and The Machine

It’s 2023 and people are on the streets. Are they screaming or are they singing? Are they rejoicing or are they mourning? It’s 2023 and some are dancing, others fighting in the face of uncertain futures. Something’s coming and it ticks like the halflife of radium in shallow graves. Something’s coming and it slinks like the shadows of past evils destined to be repeated in the near future.

You bite down. Crack. Once a white and glistening molar, now scarred with a chip. Flashes through the deepest, darkest vignettes of the end of the world. Warm, fresh blood seeps through hills of snow, hand-sculpted faces made of porcelain swathed in lace and pearls, peeling layers of skin from your scarred, speckled flesh suit. Non-fiction has chosen to centre itself on the horrors, the mania, the insanity and the rise from our realities, whatever and wherever they may be.

In the Creative Section you will read about the piss-stained skirts of angry women, glass skies raining gasoline and grease and orange globes of fire across the Yarra.

In the News pages, you’ll face a barrage of stories on police repression of student activists, creeping militarisation, and the relitigation of centuries-old fights for basic equality. The sky is falling, Dear Reader, and the shards look like hypersonic missiles.

Tapping into a hidden reservoir of emotion and energy, the artists have let go of all inhibitions and fully embraced the chaotic and uncertain nature of the world we live in.

Still, in the face of apocalypses imagined and real, we write into the pages of Farrago. You will come across the joy and the madness and the fear of it all in the pages of Edition 2, Choreomania.

Love,

Weiting, Carmen, Josh, and Xiaole

2023 Editors

Illustration by Tina Tao

PRESIDENT

Hibatallah (Hiba) Adam

Time went by really fast; it still feels like Summerfest was only yesterday and the Student Precinct was filled with your lovely faces. Thank you to everyone who came, and we hope to see you all again during our O-Week event in semester 2!

I have recently interviewed Chantelle Otten in a Q&A segment for Respect Matters week. It was a very insightful conversation around consent, sex, and pleasure. Thank you to the Women’s Department and the University for this great collaboration.

I am currently working on addressing the need for accessible food options at University. It is no surprise that the cost of living has also meant that many food vendors at the University have now become inaccessible. UMSU is working on tackling this. From our Welfare brunches, Union Mart that will soon open, Bands and Bevs, and our weekly collectives held by various departments, we are here to make sure you have options. Check UMSU’s social media to stay on top of all the events and freebies we give away.

If you have any questions, concerns or feedback feel free to email me at president@union.unimelb.edu.au

GENERAL SECRETARY

Disha Zutshi

Hi Everyone!

It has been an extremely busy month full of approvals, meetings, paper work, classes and preparation for exams.

With Mid-sem approaching as well as assignment deadlines, if you need any help with academic dispute, please contact UMSU Advocacy at https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/support/advocacy/about-the-advocacy-service/contact-advocacy/ . UMSU Advocacy is a free and confidential service for the University of Melbourne students. I have also been working on fixing some of our regulations as well as the constitution. We are also in middle of updating our policies. I have been bombarded with approvals for publications as well as flyers, clearly UMSU has some amazing events coming soon for you all!

I also hosted the first UMSU Assembly about Quality of Education. We had some interesting points come out of some great conversations. UMSU has multiple opportunities and events for all students please don’t forget to follow our socials!

Feel free to contact me at secretary@union.unimelb.edu.au or visit me in Building 168 Level 2 room 224 if you need any help or want to be involved after all UMSU IS A PLACE TO BE!

UMSU UPDATES

• Ramadan Mubarak! The People of Colour Department is here for you. We have been holding Ramadan Iftars weekly and are delighted to see many of you enjoy them. Keep an eye out for our Eid event. The Education Department has been holding UMSU Assemblies to ensure that student voice is at the centre of what UMSU does. Conversations have been revolving around access and the quality of education at Unimelb. We are listening to you to learn about how we can better serve you.

• UMSU Welfare Brunches have been a massive success. They get sold out within 30 minutes.

• UMSU Welfare and People of Colour have been hosting Iftars on Tuesdays and Thursdays

• Bands and Brunches has been popular amongst students and helped relax students as well

• UMSU Queer and Womens’ organised a Unimelb contingent for anti-TERF rally against Posie Parker which had a great outcome Our President, Hiba, hosted the interactive Q and A with Chantelle, a world acclaimed psycho-sexologist UMSU Assemblies – we have our last assembly on 29th March in Southbank

• UMSU People of Colour will be organising Eid, this is going to be the biggest celebration of Eid that anyone has seen with UMSU Activities and multiple club collaborations. Don’t forget to SAVE THE DATE- 24TH APRIL!

• - UMSU Disabilities have Collectives from 12-2 on Thursdays! Come by the Disabilities space for that!

UMSU INTERNATIONAL

by Sanskar Agarwal, UMSU International President

UMSU International has had many big wins since the last edition! I am happy to share our ISS was presented to senior members of chancellery at the Elective Representatives meeting and was commended for capturing a large dataset. Apart from getting the Journey Café(Affordable food option) opened in level three of the student pavilion it’s also made university leadership realise that the current vendors for the majority are too expensive, they’re reviewing more affordable vendors. Other issues highlighted were insufficient CAPS appointments, period poverty, racism, and recycling of lectures- UMSU International is collaborating on solutions for all of these with the University.

Our Welfare Breakfast has been running successfully on Monday, Wednesday, and

Friday. We start at 9am and usually run out in less than an hour. It’s been so successful that chancellery have taken a note of it and it was presented at the Provost Executive Group!

I am happy to announce I have been added to the Health Promotion Grants Panel as the only student representative. It is extremely good to have a student sit with university admin to approve grants for student lead health initiatives

Events wise the Night Market is on the cards in week 7, expected attendance is to the tune of 7,000. We have many other events planned for the semester. Keep an eye out @umsuintl to know more about all the fun events we have planned!

SOUTHBANK UPDATES

By Annalyce Wiebenga and Jack Doughty, Southbank Coordinators

Aaaand we’re off! Your Southbank team has launched our recurring programs:

• BBQ: Tuesday 12pm-2pm while stocks last, BBQ area near the Red Shed

• Queer: Monday 11:30am-12:30pm weeks 3, 6, 9 in Wilin Garden near the BBQs. In bad weather, head to the UMSU Southbank office level 2 of the library.

People of Colour: Friday 1:30pm-2:30pm weeks 4, 7, 10 at Betwixt.

• Disabilities: Wednesday 1pm-2pm weeks 4, 8, 11 in the UMSU Southbank Office, level 2, Southbank Library.

Our collectives run on a rotating basis and offer free food and conversation for students who identify as a member of that group.

Our week 4 BBQ was a special edition for Respect Week, where the uni brought down fruit, cupcakes and pledge boards to support the promotion of a culture of respect on our campus.

We also bring student concerns directly to uni staff. Right now, we’d love to hear your experiences with your timetable! Did you get it on time? Have you been informed of changes in a timely manner?

Looking forward, we will launch free weekly breakfasts after mid-semester break on Thursday mornings in the hub student lounge. We are making plans to run a big event or two later in the semester and have a Southbank-specific anti-racism survey in the works.

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

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

Instagram: @umsu_southbank, or https://www.instagram.com/umsu_southbank/

UMSU Website: https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/communities/southbank/

Email: southbank@union.unimelb.edu.au

Keep an eye on our socials, the UMSU website, and posters going up around Southbank campus for the latest details about free food, events, and campaigns!

BURNLEY UPDATES

by Rhys Browning, Burnley Coordinator

Autumn arrived… but not before our Taco Truck! We were lucky enough to be blessed with warmth and sunshine for our welcome Taco Tuesday Fiesta. We had a great turnout of students new and old to catch up over some Mexican inspired street food. The UMSU Burnley Department is hoping to keep this collegial atmosphere going with more food trucks to come… perhaps a Wonton Wednesday?

With studies now in full swing, it’s important to remember to look after yourself. Chat to that person you see every week and have never spoken a word to. Reach out if things are over your head, people are always more willing to help than you would expect. Covid did a number on some of us, so get out there, meet some new people, take some risks and have some fun! Your studies will be all the better for it! (Unless you have too much fun. Don’t have too much fun.)

by Jesse Gardner-Russell, GSA President and Board Chair

Indeed, it has been a busy month for the representatives at the Graduate Student Association, as we navigate the demands of diligent governance, sound financial practices and advocacy within the University Community. We have advocated on the Melbourne Student Forum for a deliberative democracy model. Likewise, we have been gathering reports of Graduate Coursework lectures without recordings.

The GSA celebrates the launch of the Advancing Students and Education Strategy, headed by Deputy Vice Chancellor Gregor Kennedy and Pro Vice Chancellor Jamie Evans, especially in regards to the commitment to “adopt the strategic use of dual and hybrid

teaching modes to provide both flexibility and choice to graduate students.” This aligns with the GSA’s continual advocacy on Dual Delivery for Graduate Students, and we look forward to working with the community to ensure fair and equitable implementation of this commitment.

All this work has been happening whilst the GSA prepare for its annual elections. Fortunately, I have a two-year board term, so if you have any issues, please reach out to me via PRESIDENT@GSA.UNIMELB.EDU.AU.

GSA

Indigenous | Brittney Henderson and Harley Lewis

Hey guys! UMSU Indigenous has been working closely with Murrup Barak and the Wilin Centre to better engage Indigenous students on both campuses. We’re almost ready to start Indigenous Nationals tryouts and field a team with Murrup Barak. We’re currently holding a competition for merch designs with the Wilin Centre and Harley attended a lunch to get to know the VCA cohort. That’s only a little of what we’ve done because I wanted to take space to thank Brittney as they resign from the department. Brittney has worked tirelessly for the last two years as UMSU councillor, Indigenous OB and Gundui Bunjil content editor on top of finishing their degree so buy them a drink the next time you see them.

People of Colour | Mohamed Hadi

We’re kicking off the semester strong! Join one of our weekly collectives with guaranteed free food every time, that’s not all we’re currently doing Ramadan Iftars every Tuesday and Thursday, sold out right now but join the waitlist and you could get a chance to join in, otherwise we have a huge Eid celebration planned on Monday the 24th of April it’ll be a huge celebration and not one to miss! Other than that we have workshops coming up every two weeks on issues relevant to our communities, first one is on racism and travel! More to come soon

Queer | Mehul Gopalakrishnan and Leslie Ho

Yo, it's been too long since our last report! But don't worry, we've been hustlin' hard over here. Most of our collectives are now live and kickin', and the ones that aren't are well on their way (G&T's, we're lookin' at you). Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting updates from us!

Women's | Ngaire Bogemann and Alessandra Soliven

There’s been a lot going on at UMSU Women’s, and we’d love for you to come along with us.

• Secured a commitment from the University to ALL recommendations to improve the Student Grievances and Complaints Process.

• Supported the Iranian Students for Liberty’s action and the trade union movement on International Women’s Day.

• Fought against transphobia both on campus and on our streets alongside UMSU Queer.

• Campaigned alongside UMSU Enviro to demand real action on climate change.

• Negotiated the installation of period product dispensaries on campus.

• Ensured there was student consultation in the planning and execution of Respect Week at Unimelb.

Activities | Arya Kushwaha and Tvisha Purswani

Report not submitted.

Clubs & Societies | Kimmy Ng and Renee Thierry

There are so many cool things happening in the Clubs and Societies department right now! Clubs are back on campus and it's full steam ahead into the rest of the semester!

Whether you’re trying to make friends and memories, or find community or networking connections, our diverse range of clubs has something for you! We have been behind the scenes supporting club executives to deliver safe and compliant events through our Workshop series. We have also run our highly-esteemed Executive Mixer, encouraging clubs to collaborate for future events.

Keep an eye on your favourite clubs for more events and fun!

Creative Arts | Saviez D’Arsie-Marquez and Abbey Crowley

Welcome back to another month in the Creative Arts department! We have been heavy at work in conversations regarding the structure, design, and initial production team applications for Mudfest this year. How exciting?! Keep an eye out for our applications and EOI forms in the coming weeks.

We have been making a start with our weekly collectives, and encourage anyone to come along and socialise with like-minded artsy folk. Alongside this, we have been actively chatting with members of our university community about potential events coming up this semester. We’re excited to bring you more in the coming weeks, such as an open mic night and stall event! If you don’t already, chuck us a follow on social media to keep updated on all things artsy <3

Education Academic | Taj Takahashi and Mary Kin Chan

Hello everyone. It was great to see many new faces in our Summerfest pottery workshop just before the grind of Semester 1 started! Over the past few weeks Carlos, Taj and I have been organising and hosting the UMSU Assemblies as an opportunity for peers to express their views on how access to quality education can be better provided. We remain grateful to the students who came and shared their valuable insights with us, which will ultimately feed into our submission to the Universities Accord. Next up: BBQ!

Education Public | Carlos Logos Martin

As the Education Public Affairs Office Bearer, I have been involved in various meetings with groups such as the NTEU and the Melbourne Student Forum, discussing collaboration and initiatives. I have also worked closely with Education Academic on the UMSU Assemblies and Student Action Points projects that increase not only our departments’ reach, but all of UMSU’s. I have also contributed to developing communication and strategy plans.

Environment | Emma Dynes and James Gallagher

The Enviro Department spent the past few months gearing up for the March 17 National Day of Climate Action. The rally was a big success, with speeches and chants exposing the Labor Party's climate crimes, and the millions of dollars that the University of Melbourne invests in fossil fuels. We marched to the State Library to join hundreds of other students — an important step in rebuilding the sort of political movement needed to defeat the fossil fuel industry and their friends in parliament. Next, we’re turning our attention towards UniMelb’s deadly ties to fossil fuels and weapons corporations, so stay tuned!

Welfare | Yashica Mishra and Ishita Ganeriwala

The Welfare Department has been keeping busy with some fun updates to share! The Welfare Brunches have been happening for a few weeks now, and we are happy to report that attendees have been enjoying healthy food options and leaving with happy faces! Additionally, we have recently organised two successful Bands and Brunches events in collaboration with the Activities Department, bringing a festive atmosphere to the gatherings. The Welfare Department also hosted a sumptuous and wholesome Ramadan Iftar in partnership with the People of Colour Department, creating beautiful memories for all who attended. Looking ahead, we are focused on getting Union Mart started up to provide essential items to students in need.

‘Different Perspectives’ by Luyao Shi

FLASH FICTION

I will be gone when you read this.

Written by Louisa Zhang

In the moment of reckoning, the sunporch is awash with the scorched scent of regret. It seems to slither and shapeshift in the midnight air, as if it were the flickering veil of death itself. The storm, mournful, steals loose petals like mandatory souvenirs of a decaying summer. I have forgotten how it feels to fear loss. On the cursed days, with its cruelties so camouflaged and careless, I have only a fragile hold over the remnants—flimsy like the withered corpses of Mother Nature.

I used to cling so earnestly, for I had dreamt of an overgrowth someday—the indestructible kind. Broken bits carried away by strange gusts of whimsy. Yet now, standing still amidst the foreshadowing of an apocalypse, I wish I had made preparations of a different kind. But we cannot reverse certain inevitabilities. Foolishly we stride on, against all odds and in spite of the gravitational pull of the past. Generations dissolving in the heat of choreomania.

I am forced to count my blessings before the ticking of a clock; the ticking of an invisible bomb. When the moment corners in on my crepuscular state, I will surrender myself to the tyranny of time. I will make neither scene nor sound. No one will remember how it ends; all will become enveloped in deceptive quietude. The pandemonium of earlier lives will fall silent. There will be no thin promises of a renaissance and no pseudo-speculations of any kind.

A graveyard of tomorrows awaits you, with its remaining latitudes of longing. It whispers, “dispose of me not…”

Flash

Written by Charlie Simmons

Melbourne CBD

Written by Strawberry

“There is no meteor heading towards earth, it’s just the government trying to scare you into staying underground forever!” yells one of the protestors. “Dictator Dan won’t infringe on my rights to freely choose where I stay!” says a middle aged woman as she waves a sovereign citizen flag. They occupy the CBD as they had every Saturday since 2020. Oddly, this time there aren’t any police monitoring the protests, along with a lack of trams and cars being blocked by them. Despite this, they are just as spirited as ever. “No more lies! My Freedom, my rights!” the protestors chant. As the minutes pass, they’re shouting louder and louder, until a deafening sound of unknown origin, followed by an eerie silence.

Couples snap pictures of Melbourne’s glittering skyline while I sit alone, eating my Big Mac. The water of the Yarra is more interesting to me—a reflected constellation made of the boat’s lights and camera flashes. The sky above, by contrast, is black and still.

Until orange streaks start gliding by. The streaks vanish behind the buildings, then expand into warm globes of fiery red. All the chatter and excitement of Southbank is shattered by distant explosions. Couples huddle together for comfort before the first skyscraper even falls. One by one, they abandon the boat to leap like frenzied frogs into the Yarra. I sit there, still chewing my Big Mac, and pull out my phone.

Each fire-red flash that accompanies each falling skyscraper illuminates the whole strip. They cover the water in an orange glaze that looks like a dancing fire. The reflection twirls joyously each time an explosion churns the water. I hold my phone, waiting for the perfect moment.

A wall of fire clambers through the falling buildings, over Flinders Street station, towards me. But I only look for a moment before returning my gaze to the water. There’s a ballet of orange and red on the water’s surface. I snap a picture at just the right moment. I send it to you before I jump into the river, leaving my phone and Big Mac behind. Hope you like my last message to you. I wanted it to be pretty.

Artwork by Taya Lilly @galatea.x

NEWS IN BRIEF

Written by Chelsea Daniel, Jules/Julie Song, Thalia Blackney, Laura Green, and Sasha Mahlab

UniMelb releases 2022 Sexual Misconduct Report

The University of Melbourne has released its 2022 Sexual Misconduct Report as part of the University’s professed “ongoing commitment to transparency.”

Now in its second year, Provost Professor Nicola Phillips says this report aims to “help build trust in our systems and processes to eradicate this issue from our University community”.

The University has also highlighted actions taken against perpetrators of sexual misconduct in a March press release. This includes seven students who have experienced suspension and four staff members who have since left the university.

Speaking to Farrago, The UMSU Women’s Officers found the report “disappointing”.

“It’s great to see the University putting more effort into this... but it would have been nice to see the things the student union and working groups have put together in this report as well”.

The Women’s Officers also noted that the report fails to look into communities affected by sexual misconduct. The 2022 National Student Safety Survey reported that 16.2% of harassment occurred at Clubs and Societies events.

Counter-Protestors Rally Against Transphobes, neo-Nazis

On Saturday 18 March, hundreds gathered across Melbourne to counter-protest against transphobic UK activist Kellie-Jay Keen (KJK), also known as Posie Parker. KJK’s works have been heavily associated with the far-right, including white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, Islamophobes, and the Proud Boys group.

Police formed a barricade to prevent counter-protestors from getting to the steps of Parliament House. Many of the counter-protesters were attacked, chased, and pepper sprayed, and some were arrested. Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe was also physically stopped by the police while trying to storm the podium whilst KJK spoke.

Approximately 30 people from the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network also arrived at Parliament House to support the transphobic rally unimpeded by police. The group performed the Nazi salute on the steps of Parliament and unfurled banners with anti-trans rhetoric without police intervention. One neo-Nazi was also reported to have beaten one of the counter-protesters.

University of Melbourne Professor Holly Lawford-Smith and state Liberal MP Moira Deeming also attended the transphobic rally alongside KJK. The Victorian Liberal Party unsuccessfully attempted to expel Deeming for her attendance at the rally, and the Andrews Labor Government announced new legislation to criminalise the Nazi salute after police were heavily criticised for their inaction towards the neo-Nazis.

Labor, Greens Compromise to Pass Safeguard Mechanism Bill

A negotiated deal between the Greens and Labor has seen an emissions safeguard mechanism pass the House of Representatives. The safeguard restricts the annual emissions of gas and fossil fuel companies, and enforces a hard cap on emissions of 140 million tonnes per year (the current level as of 2023) with a mandatory progressive decrease of 4.9% per year. Use of offset allowances will be further limited by restricting real pollution emission levels.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt claims the deal will make approximately half of the 116 new potential coal and gas projects the government is set to approve unviable and impede the remainder.

“Posie Parker you can’t hide, you’ve got Nazis on your side”:

Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum Draft Wording Released

The proposed wording for the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament was released in March.

The referendum will determine whether the Australian people approve the development of a constitutional body to represent Australia’s First Nations peoples within Parliament.

The proposed wording for the referendum is: “A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?”

The draft was developed with the First Nations Referendum Working Group, made up of representatives from Indigenous communities throughout the country.

A Parliamentary joint committee will receive submissions on the Voice in the coming months, and the bill is expected to be voted on by Parliament in June before the referendum is put to the public later in 2023.

New $5 Note to Feature First Nations Designs

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) announced in February that the $5 banknote will be redesigned to prioritise First Nations representation, in consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The $5 note currently carries the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September 2022. The announcement quashed speculation that the $5 note may be redesigned with a portrait of King Charles III, the Queen’s son and heir.

The RBA said it will “take a number of years” for the new design to be finalised and introduced into circulation. They have not outlined what the consultation process will look like, but said it has the support of the Australian Government.

There is some history of First Nations representation on banknotes, including the current $50 note, which features Ngarrindjeri man David Unaipon, an activist, inventor, artist, and preacher.

Previously, a number of bank notes were printed with depictions of Aboriginal rock art and designs of Yolngu man and artist David Malangi Daymirringu.

Labor wins 2023

NSW State Election

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) won the New South Wales election in March, with Labor leader Chris Minns defeating Dominic Perrottet’s Liberals to form a minority government.

The ALP won 45 seats in the Legislative assembly, retaining 37 and gaining 8 new seats from the Coalition. The Coalition retained 36 seats.

Seven independents retained their seats on the crossbench, and were joined by two more in the electorates of Wakehurst and Wollondilly; the Greens also retained 3 seats.

Minns’ ALP have missed out a majority by two seats, but will form the next NSW government.

Australia to Buy Nuclear Submarines Under AUKUS Deal

The Australian government has committed to purchasing three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and to develop eight of a yet-to-be-finalised new design class in collaboration with the United Kingdom under the AUKUS pact, at an expected total cost of up to $368 billion.

A number of countries, including China, have criticised the deal and accused Australia of nuclear proliferation and disrupting world peace and security in favour of their own national interest.

“Women’s rights are human rights”: Iranian women fight on for International Women’s Day campus rally

Written by Hannah Vandenbogaerde

This piece originally appeared online on 20 March 2023.

Protesters gathered at South Lawn in support of Iranian women’s fight for freedom and equality on International Women’s Day on Wednesday March 8, as part of a larger global “Campus Rally for Iran” organised by Iranian Scholars for Liberty.

Speakers present talked about the harsh treatment Iranian women are subjected to by the “Islamic Republic regime” in their country.

“The Islamic Regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] have shown no remorse and no indication of slowing down their crimes against humanity. If anything, their actions are becoming more atrocious and appalling as the world is watching”, said University of Melbourne Iranian Society President Shakiba.

She spoke about the “brave-spirited protesters” fighting oppression in Iran, while asking Australia to take a firm stand against the Islamic Regime.

“It is time for the Australian government to take action in line with the secular, democratic and humanitarian values that Iranian people have been trying to achieve.”

Speakers throughout the rally called out the Australian government for their lack of protection, and demanded further action, such as putting the IRGC on the list of terrorist organisations.

Dr. Minoo Ghamari, a human rights activist, mentioned an attack plotted by the IRGC in Australia two weeks ago, and the unwillingness of the Australian government to prevent it from happening again.

“This organization [IRGC] has threatened and plotted an attack on Australian soil. And our question to our politicians should be: what are you doing? What actions are you taking?”

“We migrated here in a first world country to be safe, first of all.”

Ek Thaghdir, a Melbourne barrister practising in family law and Iranian community activist, said these kinds of protests are very important to protect “the infiltration of Australia with an ideology that is actually dangerous”.

When asked about how students at the University of Melbourne could help, Thaghdir said they should use their influence as members of one of Australia’s leading universities to amplify the voices of Iranian women.

“If they become aware of the issue at hand and spread the message, then certainly our politicians will hear that message and take note.”

Shiva Nouri, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, and one of the organizers of the protest, said the event was an opportunity to learn and hear from Iranian womens’ stories.

“I want my struggles to be heard and to be seen,” she said.

Despite being a little disappointed with the rally’s small attendance, Nouri said it still sent a strong message. She, and other students present, said they hoped to receive more active support from the University in organizing more events and joining the protests, but that little has happened yet.

Arezo, another PhD student present at the rally, said that active measures such as taking part in protests, organizing more events

and increasing public awareness would help significantly in amplifying public pressure.

Arezo also spoke about the ongoing impacts that the repression in Iran had on her mental health.

“I could not find enough time to focus on my studies. I see that my countrymates are suffering. And I’m bombarded with the news: everyday, there is something happening in Iran,” she said.

The news often brings back bad memories for Arezo, as she had been arrested by the Gasht-e-Ershad — Iran’s morality police — multiple times.

UMSU Womens Officers Ngaire Bogemann and Alessandra Soliven, who helped organise the event with Iranian Scholars for Liberty, said the rally was important because women’s rights remain an international issue.

“It is stuff that resonates with us here; it is gender inequality, it is discrimination against women, non-binary and gender diverse people. It is something that we are fighting here as well”, Soliven said.

Bogemann also pointed out that the events in Iran affect Iranian women every day, even at the University of Melbourne. “They live through that every day, even if they are in Australia, and even if they are coming to uni here.”

When asked if UMSU and the University are looking at other options to support Iranian students, Bogemann and Soliven explained that they believed any further actions should be led by students “who have the most lived experience, who have the most knowledge, and who are personally affected by the issue.”

Photography by Eldon Lee

Written by Katya Sloboda-Bolton

This piece originally appeared online on 20 March 2023.

UNSW Education Officer Cherish Kuehlmann has accused NSW Police of using “politically motivated intimidation” tactics after her restrictive bail conditions on a charge of aggravated trespass were overturned by the court.

Kuehlmann, who was charged with a single count of unlawful entry on inclosed land, was arrested in a widely-criticised midnight raid on February 25 after leading a student protest against the housing crisis outside the Reserve Bank headquarters in Sydney.

Unexpectedly strict bail conditions — including a prohibition on entering within 2km of Sydney’s Town Hall — were imposed by NSW Police after her arrest, before being thrown out by local magistrate, Clare Fernan, after she described them as “inappropriate,” and questioned the motivation behind them.

Although the protesters never entered the bank building itself, the document claims the forecourt in front is “still deemed to form part of the curtilage of the RBA”. The fact sheet alleges that “protesting activities carried out in this area without approval is considered unlawful and a trespass” on RBA property.

“The purpose of bail conditions isn’t to prevent one from attending a protest, it’s to prevent a bail concern,” Fernan said, after NSW Police warned that without the bail restrictions, Kuehlmann “may engage in similar events” to those that led to her arrest.

The magistrate acknowledged the democratic right to protest, stating: “there are lawful protests that members of the community are lawfully entitled to attend.”

Kuehlmann claimed the arrest was a “politically motivated intimidation” tactic, intended to “make an example out of [her]” and “scare [her] into silence”.

She said the arrest shows how “police feel totally confident to crack down on protestors in any way they feel,” and that it “comes in the context of attacks on [the] civil liberties” of protestors more generally.

The protest that led to Kuehlmann’s arrest occurred at Martin Place last month,, where approximately 30 students marched to protest the rising cost of living for university students, in light of further interest rate rises by the Reserve Bank.

The police fact sheet regarding the protest, as seen by the Guardian, claims Kuehlmann’s charge was in relation to the demonstrators’ presence on the grounds outside the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

According to the document, Kuehlmann was “cautioned and spoken to” by NSW police regarding her involvement after the protestors left the RBA. Despite complying with NSW Police at the time of the protest, Kuehlmann was charged later that night with aggravated trespass during a surprise midnight raid.

“They banged on the door very loudly”, Kuehlmann said. “They told me I’m under arrest and I need to come with them.” Kuehlmann also described how the police only allowed her to get dressed under direct supervision, and confiscated her phone and keys.

Kuehlmann said she was then taken to the local police station for “around four hours,” after which she was released on strict bail conditions that the police threatened to “send [her] to jail for the weekend” if she did not sign.

“We’re increasingly seeing bail conditions being used to stop climate activists and other activists from associating with each other, from entering the city,” Kuehlmann said. “I will not be intimidated by this...I’ll continue to stand up for students and fight against the housing crisis”.

Kuehlmann intends to plead not guilty to the charges of aggravated trespass at her scheduled hearing on 25 October.

"Politically motivated intimidation": Bail conditions removed after midnight raid on UNSW student activist

Photography by Cherish Kuehlmann

Content Warning: police repression

Content Warning: police repression

Written by Selina Zhang, Churan Zhang, and Caitlin Hall

Recently returned Chinese international students are choosing to continue their studies online, over concerns about their level of in-person English proficiency.

This is despite the Chinese Government's announcement in January it would no longer recognise foreign qualifications completed virtually.

More than 40,000 Chinese students previously studying remotely rushed back to Australia before the start of Semester 1, with 11,000 returning to Victorian universities.

Although they are physically back 'on campus', many feel online classes remain a necessity.

"We think that it's quite hard for us to have class in the classroom, since our English listening skills are not very high, and we can't really understand what the professors talk about in class," said Nora Wu, a second-year Masters student.

Lack of confidence in their English skills has left many dependent on online resources such as Otter.ai, a real-time English-to-Chinese translation program.

"I'm really scared the teachers will ask me questions, since it's very possible that I can't understand the questions I will be asked," said Sofie Ma, another postgraduate student.

The University of Melbourne did not directly respond to questions over whether it was aware many Chinese international students were choosing to remain online.

"In the last few weeks we have seen a wonderful vibrancy on campus," the University spokesperson stated.

"This is consistent with our active encouragement of all students to participate in all that our campus life has to offer."

But as dual-delivery remains an option for some graduate programs, some Chinese international students say they've chosen online learning because it allows them to interact with more classmates of a similar language proficiency.

"The problem [with in-person classes] is, most of the time we can't understand what the local students talk about in the group discussion," Ma said.

Experts say the past few years of remote learning have exacerbated these anxieties over language ability for the international cohort.

“Their English level may not have met the requirements originally, and after a year of remote learning, it is definitely hard for them to participate in the physical classes,” said Yu Cheng, an English-language teacher from China’s Zhi ke (Intelligence Education) language agency.

"The fact is that language proficiency is not static," said Sanskar Agarwal, University of Melbourne Student Union International (UMSU International) President.

"What happens is a lot of international students ... [have] mingled just with people from the same cultural background, and they prefer to speak in their mother tongue, and that actually gets [proficiency] down."

The University has maintained "exten-

sive" English-language support is offered through its Academic Skills programs. But UMSU International argued student requests for subtitles in recorded lectures, and better in-class assistance, were being ignored by Academic Skills.

"Apparently [they] don't really focus on this part of the academic stuff," said Shea Law, UMSU International's Education and Welfare Officer.

In response to student concerns, China’s Service Centre for Scholarly Exchange (CSCSE)—the government body responsible for processing overseas qualifications—clarified students would only be permitted to take online classes if they could provide evidence in-person lessons were full.

"Overseas credentials obtained with studies continued to be completed through remote learning... will not be evaluated," the Centre stated.

But those continuing to take classes online say the CSCSE has no way of confirming whether attendance was physical or remote.

"Our transcripts don't show whether we took our subjects online or in-person, so as long as we have our flight departure record, they [the CSCSE] won't know," explained Wu.

Many are waiting until they feel more confident in their English skills, or until online learning is no longer an option, before returning to the physical classroom.

"I am scared my degree might not be recognised, but I don’t believe it will actually happen," said Ma.

“We can’t really understand what the professors talk about”: Chinese international students continue online studies despite government ban

Western Australia set to review public university structure

Written by Chelsea Daniel

This piece originally appeared online on 20 March 2023.

The Western Australian state government will conduct an independent review into the state’s universities to “consider how structural change could strengthen the local university sector and delivery for students,” reopening debates around a potential merger of the state’s universities.

The independent review, announced in late February, will examine the structure of WA’s four public universities, which includes the University of Western Australia, Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, and Murdoch University.

This follows high-profile calls to amalgamate the four universities, with Western Australian Chief Scientist Peter Klinken claiming in 2021 that the larger scale university structure that would result could assist with rankings, performance, and enrolment numbers.

Premier Mark McGowan and Education Minister Dr Tony Buti announced that the review “would investigate what changes may help to better support the performance and financial sustainability of the State's four public universities.”

The review comes off the back of a decline in Western Australia’s tertiary sector, with 2020 seeing only 5.5% of international students studying in Australia enrolling in universities in the state. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, WA universities were already experiencing decreased Commonwealth funding and a declining share of competitive research grants.

McGowan and Dr Buti said the “increasingly constrained” environment in the state’s university sector prompted the review.

Steven Chapman, Vice-Chancellor of Edith Cowan University, has voiced his support for the review, saying he will ensure it reflects the diversity of WA. In 2021, he opposed Klinken’s proposed amalgamation, calling it “superficial and flawed”.

“In the top 25 universities [in the world], only one of those universities is bigger than our biggest university, Curtin [University] – that’s [the University of] Toronto – so it’s nothing to do with size,” Chapman said.

Not all of the state’s academics support the review—and potential amalgamations—with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) calling the review “mistimed, misdirected and [lacking in] transparency.”

“It doesn't make sense to have a state review when the Federal Government is canvassing the biggest changes to the sector in more than a decade through the so-called Accord process,” said NTEU WA Division Secretary Dr Catherine Moore.

"Public universities are a public good. Their mission to provide quality teaching, research, infrastructure and expertise to communities must be at the core of any review.”

The NTEU is calling on the state government to “rule out” the merging of the four public universities, citing job losses and a “major impact” on teaching sat-

isfaction as amongst the consequences, causing both students’ experiences and universities' reputations to suffer.

Curtin Guild President Dylan Botica said in a February press release that the “McGowan Government’s rush-job review has ignored the existential threat it poses to student unionism in Western Australia.”

“Any review that has scope to abolish student guilds cannot be conducted with a complete lack of engagement with those bodies”.

“Student guilds are statutory bodies that have been completely unrepresented in the panel membership, while University management is an overwhelming majority”.

The review will consider enhancing the student experience a key point in potential restructures and will also look at improving financial sustainability, increasing student enrolment, and attracting and retaining high-calibre staff.

The independent reviewers will include Sandra Harding, Peter Shergold, Ian Watt, and John Williams.

Williams is an executive dean at the University of Adelaide, which is set to merge with SA’s other public university, the University of South Australia, in 2026.

The report is due to be handed down in the second half of 2023.

“Online Self-Paid Internships”: A Springboard Or a Trap?

Written by Churan Zhang

Once again, it’s time for Heng Xu, a Chinese international student studying at the Australian National University, to remind her internship supervisor to send her feedback about the work she submitted three days ago.

“I reminded my leader yesterday. She promised me that she would send me the feedback yesterday evening, but she hasn’t sent it so far. I can’t remember how many times I waited anxiously for my leader’s reply and needed to urge her many times,” says Xu. “It feels like I’m not qualified to take the position and now I’m begging her to take the internship.”

“I know this could happen for online self-paid internships, but in order to make her more competitive when seeking a job, I paid for it anyway,” says Xu’s mother.

“Online self-paid Internship” in China

As the number of graduates in China increases year by year, the competition for jobs is increasingly fierce. Such an environment brings about many agencies that assist students in finding jobs, and one of their main services is the “online self-paid internship”.

In these programs, students pay money to do internships online for top companies in China to appear more competitive when seeking jobs. Students are assigned work by their internship supervisors, and receive feedback on WeChat afterwards.

Although many leading companies in China claim that they don’t allow any of their employees to engage in these online self-paid internships, they are becoming increasingly popular amongst Chinese students.

Compared to their domestic peers, it is more difficult for Chinese students studying overseas in other countries to get an internship at a Chinese company, since they are not able to work in-person.

As a result, overseas Chinese students are the main targets for online internship providers, and agencies

are now trying to use different ways to engage overseas Chinese students as clients.

Alan Xiong, the marketing director of one such agency in China, Intern Student, said that the most common way they approach students is by publicising themselves in WeChat groups composed of new students. They also sometimes send their employees to university campuses to directly advertise their services to students.

“For Australian universities including The University of Melbourne and Monash University, we already have a very detailed plan for advertising our services [including the “online self-paid internship”] to Chinese international students,” says Xiong.

Many Chinese students in need of an internship experience to be more competitive in the job market find it difficult to decide whether they should do these online self-paid internships or not. For some, the internship has been of great use in landing future jobs in major Chinese companies. However, for others, it seemed to be merely a trap that wasted their time and money.

The Springboard to a Career in Major Companies

“If you want to get into a top company but couldn’t obtain relevant internship experience, the online self-paid internship is no doubt the best choice—you don’t need to worry about not being able to get the internship offer,” says Bella Zheng, a staff member from another of these agencies.

“I have a student [client] who graduated from a lower-ranked university but got into a top internet company, since she did several online self-paid internships with us in such major companies. [This] made her more competitive when applying for the position.”

Lydia Cao, a staff member from another agency, also commented on the practical aspect of online self-paid internships. According to Cao, these internships are not merely certificates that prove that the student has relevant internship experience; more importantly, they equip the student with real industry knowledge.

“With the knowledge acquired in the internship, students are much more competitive than others who have no idea about the roles and responsibilities of the position they want to apply for,” says Cao.

One of Cao’s clients, Xiang Li, said that throughout the three-month online self-paid internship in a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company, she developed an understanding of what specifically she had to do in a marketing position in the industry. Her internship experience eventually helped her get an employment offer from another FMCG company.

A Trap that Brings Nothing but Trouble

Although some students and agency staff spoke highly of the online self-paid internship, others criticised the program as a waste of time and money. An Zhou, an undergraduate student at the Renmin University of China, said that the online self-paid internship he did for 10 months in a securities company turned out to be completely fake.

“It turned out that my internship supervisor—who claimed to be an in-house security analyst—was actually a postgraduate student intern there,” says Zhou. “I am now feeling that I was quite stupid. Throughout my 10-month internship, I completed millions of words of research reports, and even worked overtime on the night of New Year’s Day.”

Unlike An Zhou, Lin Zhou, an undergraduate student from Beijing, said that she was assigned an actual manager in the company as her internship supervisor. However, the work she was given was not the real work in-house employees would do.

“During the internship, my daughter was just given some repetitive work to do. For instance, she was asked to translate and edit some given articles. However, we did not see any of the translated articles being posted on their news account,” says Zhou’s mother.

Other than being given irrelevant tasks, some students

criticised their internship supervisors as irresponsible. “After I submitted the third task my leader gave me, [he] didn’t reply anymore, and I think he just forgot about me. I asked human resources about what happened— she told me that the leader was super busy and never gave me any response after. At the end of the internship, she just said that the internship was over and dismissed the WeChat group,” says Sihan Wang, a Chinese international student in Canada.

A Springboard, a Trap or a Gamble?

“In the one-month internship, I only did three tasks and didn’t really learn anything useful. I think it was quite a waste of money.”

There is still one week to go until the end of Heng Xu’s internship, but she is already feeling an exhaustion she has never experienced in her life.

“I have no choice. I wanted to stop my online self-paid internship a long time ago. But in that case, I can neither get the internship certificate, nor my money back.”

In truth, whether these online self-paid internships are such powerful weapons just as the agencies described; or indeed, are they simply scams that are not worth students’ time and money? Perhaps only those who’ve purchased would know.

“I think maybe I practised translating between English and Chinese and I learned how to use a Chinese new media editing software, but these are not what I want,” says Xu.

“The staff from the agency to whom I pay for the internship told me that I would do the real work in-house employees in the company are doing, but I know that the work I’m doing is actually made up by my internship supervisor.”

“There is no doubt that the internship is not worth the price.”

The Great Debate: The AUKUS Pact

Oly Woodrow Kyle Kieran Kell Socialist Alternative Solidarity Student Club

1. Does Australia need nuclear submarines?

No. The idea that Australia needs nuclear submarines accepts the aggressive, imperialist logic of the AUKUS deal. AUKUS should be called out for what it is: an unprecedented escalation of Australian militarism operationalized through an offensive alliance with the world largest and most dangerous superpower.

These nuclear submarines are not ‘defensive’ vessels, but designed to travel deep into the South China sea to defend shipping routes and launch potential future attacks. The near 300 billion dollar price tag dumped on working people. Australians need houses, food, climate security and peace - not nuclear submarines and partnership with warhawks.

2. Should Australia be part of the AUKUS pact?

Australian should get out of the US alliance now. Ordinary people have nothing to gain from raised tensions in the Indo-Pacific and everything to lose. While Biden portrays the US alliance as a coalition of democracies protecting human rights, it is really a coalition of the biggest war criminals on the planet. The three million dead in Vietnam, one million in Iraq, the destruction of Afghanistan, are all testament to this. The US is the only nation to use nuclear weapons on civilians. Australia should play no further part in championing this brutality.

3. Does the AUKUS pact support or threaten regional peace and security?

AUKUS represents potentially the largest and most dangerous step from the Australian state toward warfare in the Asia-pacific yet. This pact is an acute escalation in a wider militaristic build up from Australia and its allies that greatly endanger the entire planet.

Australia's involvement is a massive step away from peace, towards militarisation and war. US bases in northern Australia, or an eventual fleet of US warships threatens war in the name of an inter-imperialist conflict in which we should play no part.

1. Does Australia need nuclear submarines?

No. Militarily, the long-submersion capability of nuclear subs has only one conceivable purpose: long-range patrols into the South China Sea. Nuclear subs are offensive, not defensive weapons.

The AUKUS subs use weapons-grade uranium. This is a nuclear proliferation risk. Without a repository for high-level nuclear waste, these subs are an environmental risk even if they survive their service life. Dumping would be on remote Aboriginal land (our entire continent, of course, is unceded land), so the subs violate the wishes of Traditional Owners such as the Barngarla in Kimba, SA.

We need to spend the $368 billion on our actual problems: the jobs and climate crises, inflation, housing, healthcare, etc.

2. Should Australia be part of the AUKUS pact?

No. AUKUS follows an old strategy: help the dominant Western power police the world, in return for them supporting Australia in dominating the Pacific.

Xi Jinping is a tyrant, yes, but Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us that we cannot ‘’spread democracy’’ and ‘’police international norms’’ by military force. A US-China war means economic devastation for much of the world, if not outright nuclear war. AUKUS makes this war more likely. Our subs and their ports will be targets. We should do everything possible to ensure this war never happens.

3. Does the AUKUS pact support or threaten regional peace and security?

Threaten. Malaysia and Indonesia argue that the deal will cause a regional arms race. South Korea and Japan are already debating getting their own nuclear subs.

Australia itself is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. And we have been horrible neighbours to East Timor, the Solomons, Nauru, and Papua New Guinea. AUKUS only lets us intimidate them more easily, and it guarantees a US-China war will spread across our region.

Preamble and questions by Josh Davis

Content Warning: References to militarism, war, violence, imperialism

The Albanese Government has committed to acquiring 3 Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and developing 8 newly-designed nuclear-powered submarines in collaboration with the United Kingdom for a total cost of up to $368 billion under the AUKUS pact, originally signed by the Morrison Government in 2021.

Being a notorious fence-sitter on just about everything, this writer is incapable of forming his own independent thoughts and opinions (even the concept of this column was inspired by our colleagues at On Dit), so he's outsourced it to representatives from UMSU's affiliated political clubs, who kindly took the opportunity to soapbox and ran with it.

Ngaire Bogemann Jack Walton

ALP Club Melbourne University Liberal Club

1. Does Australia need nuclear submarines?

No. Nuclear power has no place on or near our shores. We're also a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and though these submarines won't be nuclear weapons, we shouldn't be using nuclear energy to power war ships - pretty shit really.

There's also the fact that, even if we had these submarines for the sake of our own security, they're not arriving for 30 years, after which they'll be technologically obsolete and offer no security benefit whatsoever.

More generally, $368 billion is an insane amount of money to spend on submarines when it could be used to, I don't know, address to cost of living crisis or do literally anything else to better the standard of living in this country.

2. Should Australia be part of the AUKUS pact?

The AUKUS pact completely undermines the approach to foreign affairs introduced under the Hawke/Keating Government that advocates for a pivot to Asia to keep ourselves safe within our region. China are our largest neighbour and biggest trading partner, so logically they are also the best country to align ourselves with strategically and economically. We should be looking within the Asia-Pacific Region for stability and security - it's a hell of a lot smarter than looking elsewhere.

3. Does the AUKUS pact support or threaten regional peace and security?

It so very clearly threatens it. AUKUS and the purchasing of these submarines not only unnecessarily provokes China and upsets many of our Pacific Islander neighbours, but also has caused a resurgence of anti-China, pro-war sentiment in the media. This narrative - or any narrative calling for us to ready ourselves for war - is dangerous. Fuck war and fuck anyone calling for us to engage in it.

1. Does Australia need nuclear submarines?

100%. In an increasingly unstable world, Australia requires the ability to defend itself against threats which are becoming larger and more sophisticated by the day. Our first line of defence lies in the ocean, so it clearly follows that strong naval defences are a vital part of keeping our country safe. As our maritime threats increase, so must our naval force.

This is where nuclear submarines come in. Submarines are the perfect weapons for small countries like Australia, capable of hiding beneath the waves and striking far larger and more sophisticated fleets, such as the kind that we may face.

The threats we face are imminent. A war in Taiwan appears likely before the end of the decade, and the soft power expansion of China into the Pacific island nations and the war in Ukraine foreshadow a belligerent and hostile global stage, reminiscent of the stark divisions of the Cold War.

2. Should Australia be part of the AUKUS pact?

Absolutely. It makes clear sense for Australia to strengthen our alliance with two liberal democracies who share our values and who have the capabilities to defend us where we cannot.

Australia has always relied in large part on the United States and the United Kingdom for its security. We simply do not have the population, manufacturing base, or armed forces budget to stand on our own against the threats we face.

3. Does the AUKUS pact support or threaten regional peace and security?

AUKUS does not in any way threaten regional peace or stability, in fact it does the opposite. It is Australia’s deterrent. Weakness is provocative, and strength curbs the aggressive tendencies of those who would wage war against us.

The more prepared for war our country is, the more we deter possible aggressors.

AUKUS is not a charter for regional domination or ‘imperialism’. It is a sensible reinforcement of necessary defensive capabilities.

SATIRE-IN-BRIEF

Written by the Satire Team

Submarines Solve Housing Crisis

Written by Julie/Jules Song

The Australian Government has recently committed to spending nearly $400 billion to build and buy nuclear-powered submarines. That’s 1000 times the amount of money that councils and housing groups have estimated in order to solve the housing crisis.

Maybe the government is going to use these submarines as a new, innovative form of alternative accommodation: underwater cars.

Or perhaps they’re planning to convert them to aquatic Airbnbs to help boost the tourism sector after the pandemic slump. Residents would have a good view of the marine wildlife, and can wave to their neighbouring sailors in the Chinese Navy.

The only downside is that they will have to listen to the Beatles 24/7. ~We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine~

New Student Precinct full of exciting features coffee, bubble tea, and exhibitionism!

Written by Julie/Jules Song

The University of Melbourne now has three more buildings added to its sizable portfolio on Grattan Street and Monash Road. Students can now get Gong Cha, cheap coffee from the General Store, and medicine from the pharmacy — presuming they can find where these are located, as the University has neglected to put in any signs.

In another exciting addition, one of the men’s bathrooms in Building 168 has clearly been designed for the University’s budding exhibitionist population, as you can see people using the, ahem, facility, from the outside. Perhaps exhibitionism is your cup of tea; no kink shaming here! It is, however, up to you to find that bathroom — we won’t give you any hints.

ChatGPT Learns How to Fix Plumbing, No Jobs are Safe

Written by Alexia Shaw

As concerns mount about artificial intelligence taking the jobs of artists, and other creatives, it appears even practical trades aren’t safe from its metaphorical reach.

Seemingly unstoppable in what it can do, ChatGPT can now fix sinks, showers, and other plumbing issues in homes. It can reportedly also change lightbulbs, build IKEA flatpacks, and rock a high vis vest. Watch out tradies: they’re coming for you

Man Confuses The Last of Us for a Documentary on a New Covid Variant

Written by Alexia Shaw

Herman Peters, 81, was enthralled while watching HBO’s new smash-hit apocalyptic TV series.

However Peters, who watches all of his programs on mute, told Farrago he assumed the show was simply a well-filmed documentary on COVID-19, and was understandably terrified when watching people transform into zombie monsters after contracting the new disease.

“I’m not sure what’s worse, being turned into a flesh eating beast, or the Delta cough. I do hope that man gets the little girl to safety though. He’s been through so much already, what with travelling through space and catching a drug lord and all.”

Hailey Bieber Set to Star in Sorcerers of Signally Street

Written by Iana Abrigo

Set to follow in her father Stephen Baldwin’s footsteps, the 26-year-old model is shifting her gears towards acting, as she has been recently confirmed to play the lead role in HBO Max’s upcoming show SorcerersofSignally Street

“Actually, Justin recommended I audition for the role,” Bieber gushes. “Or, well, I caught him watching reruns of Wizards of Waverley Place and it made me want to audition for the role. More specifically, I caught him skipping to scenes with just Selena in them, and that really made me want to audition for the role.”

2023 will mark an exciting year for Bieber, as she is also set to launch her own beauty line Scarce Pretty along with her debut single Slaughter Em with Sympathy.

REVIEW: Oedipus Provides His Opinions on TLC’s MILF Manor

Written by Iana Abrigo

Hey guys! It’s your former King of Thebes, Oedipus, all up in this parthenon!

Now, you guys have been flooding my scroll section practically begging for me to give my honest, unadulterated review on TLC’s new show MILF Manor.

And let me tell you, for the love of Dionysus, can we please stop letting TLC produce shows?! MILF? More like MILPFR - Man I Love Proving Freud Right. This is getting really weird, you guys. I know y’all love to say I’m the OG motherfucker — which is so sweet — but at least my little dalliance was literally an accident. And unlike me, these sons don’t even have the decency to gouge their eyes out post-coitus! But you know who is doing that? The viewers.

3/10 — I miss when entertainment was killing your enemies.

“When will you win an Oscar?” Asian parents ask.

Written by Julie/Jules Song

Everything Everywhere All At Once picked up seven awards at this year’s Oscars, with star Michelle Yeoh now the first ever Asian woman to win Best Actress.

As happy and victorious as this moment is for Asian communities, Asian acting students now face a new type of pressure.

While “You wasting money on acting lah, why no become doctor or lawyer??” was once a common soundbite from parents, a new, fashionable criticism is in vogue: “When will you win the Oscars??”.

Our sincere empathy towards the Asian VCA students at the Southbank campus.

Girl Demands Refund for Harry Styles Concert After Singer Did Not Fall in Love with Her Mid-Song

Written by Alexia Shaw

Hayley Demens has demanded she get her money back after Styles did not spot her in the crowd with his “piercing green eyes” and come to the sudden realisation that she was his soulmate.

“I did everything right,” complained Demens. “I wore my best no-lens glasses and I fake-read a book the entire time, but nothing. I even loitered in this nearby sketchy alleyway afterwards so that he could kidnap me and force me to go on tour with him and still no response. What a let down!”

in Melbourne' by Meg Bonnes

Swimming

Through the In-Between

Written by Donna Ferdinando

‘The Backrooms’ was born, as most contemporary urban legends did, as a “creepypasta”—a catch-all term for that little corner of the Internet where lovers of all things eerie congregate. On its designated Wikipedia page, ‘The Backrooms’ legend is described as an "unreality", "the existence of a 'place' that people can slip into and become lost or trapped".

YouTube's horror scene is an ever-evolving, thriving entity. On the one hand you have ghost hunters toting thermal cameras to any location with a wisp of a ghost story to its name. On the other hand, storytellers regale listeners to tales of spooky ghosts and less-friendly entities. ‘The Backrooms does not include any “thing” of the spirit realm. In a series of fan-made, found-footage YouTube videos, amateur filmmaker, director and Youtuber, Kane Parsons, envisioned ‘The Backrooms’ with empty corridors plastered with dingy yellow wallpaper of a dull, repetitive pattern; the kind one finds in seedy motel rooms with one too many skeletons in their closet. The corners of the corridors are jagged, veering right and left far too abruptly for one's liking, impossible to see what may be hiding behind a shadowy corner. A bizarre ring of static hovers phantom-like over one's eardrums. A metallic screech sounds through the stale air at random. You dare not turn back to witness what ungodly creature could possibly make such a sound. You’d rather run. It isn't any wonder that A24—the studio behind the likes of Midsommar, Hereditary and The Menu—have picked up ‘The Backrooms’ and the aesthetics of Kane Parsons for their next project. What is it about Parsons’s aesthetics, however, that made ‘The Backrooms’ so compelling for film studios and Internet-goers alike?

I feel that it has to do with Parsons’s use of aesthetics associated with liminal spaces in his depiction of ‘The Backrooms’. It is further interesting that the key words used to describe ‘The Backrooms’ are "unreality" and "place". There lies a frustrating ambiguity in "place" and an even more compelling, baffling uncertainty about what constitutes as an “unreality”. A liminal space, certainly, is an unreality away from reality. It is, certainly, the bare bones of what constitutes a “place”.

Liminal spaces are considered transitional spaces; more often a metaphor for that in-between, between one point and the next. The denizens of the Internet, however, associate liminal spaces with a literal space and with a specific aesthetic: empty and silent. Reality is a brightly white-washed house with a picket fence and warm sunlight filtering through clean blinds; a house filled (as expected) with constant noise and movement. Unreality would be an empty house with its whitewash long faded away and the doors swinging on creaky hinges, ensuring that, despite everything, one heard the ringing silence. This abandoned, empty house, however, becomes a liminal space because it sits between being abandoned and the possibility of being occupied and entering reality once more. It is not a home nor a house, but simply a “place”.

So, does ‘The Backrooms’ follow the same rules? It's the silence of an abandoned office building (or is it a hotel? Basement? Parsons doesn't specify and neither does the Creepypasta website) that should be rightfully filled with the noise of keyboards clacking that makes one's hair stand on end. It's the eerie notion of not knowing whether a corridor is empty or not, and the chill (when a noise is heard) that there shouldn't be anything making a sound at all. It’s a game that one plays with their senses; abandoned or not? Empty or not? Occupied or not?

And perhaps Kane Parsons exploits liminal spaces and their aesthetics the most in recent Internet history, but it is apparent that this concept is permeating mainstream contemporary horror cinema as well. More accurately, liminal space has always lingered as a catalyst for an already terrifying horror scene. Take, for example, the infamous stereotype of a character stepping into a morbidly desolate bedroom. The settings of more recent horror films have shown a growing emphasis on liminal spaces as their own entity rather than a contributing factor to the eeriness of a scene. In Jordan Peele's Nope, the arid desert, expanding from the protagonist's lonely ranch, overshadows the creature's destruction; for in that expanse, there is nowhere to hide. The Menu features a similarly desolate island, surrounded by a liminal expanse of water between two docks. The common thread here is loneliness, entrapment and the inability to escape.

And in exploiting these innate human fears of the loss of control and being in the presence of something undefinable, I have no doubt that A24 will be able to transform ‘The Backrooms’ into a cult classic, and thus reroute the trajectory of the future of the horror genre.

by Meg Bonnes

Euthanasia: self-liberation through self-destruction

Written by Mira Manghani

It has been five years of sitting by a hospital bed, speaking to an unresponsive man, re-playing make-believe conversations that will never be, of feeling a deafening silence engulf each crevice of the room. The sliver of hope ingrained in the base of my heart has gradually begun rotting into despair. Perhaps there would be more peace in letting go than fighting a losing battle each day.

Euthanasia, the act of ending one’s life to reduce the pain and suffering of a person is currently legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and all six states of Australia1. In a nutshell, the western world has accepted the idea of euthanasia with time. However, the rest of the world stays trapped in its religious ideals and immovable orthodox belief systems.

The very purpose of these systems seems to be buried under the rigid adherence to tradition and the reluctance to consider new ideas.

Five years ago, someone close to me suffered a stroke. Five years later, he is kept alive through machines running through his arms and an aspirator operated into his throat. A monitor rests on his side, displaying his heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature at all times. It is almost as if his life amounts to the spikes in his heart rate or the dips in his blood pressure.

Coming from a South Asian background, pulling the plug ceases to exist. Humans do not make a decision that is entrusted to God.

According to the African belief system, euthanasia is an act of ‘self-destruction’. This culture views it as unacceptable and no different from ‘suicide’ - as one is not meant to collapse in the face of difficulty2

Several studies demonstrate that individuals from Asian backgrounds are also known to be more opposed to euthanasia than those from European backgrounds3. The discussion for legalising the practice is so taboo that every time it starts out, it frantically gets swept under the rug.

The only recent article I found discussing euthanasia in Singapore was one that was published in March 1994. The article echoed the view that the practice in the country should be ‘categorically rejected as a tool in the making of end-of-life decisions.’ It came out after supporters of euthanasia argued for its legalisation based on the grounds that one’s autonomy should be respected, and one should have the right to choose death, should one be terminally ill4

The majority of the Singaporean population is Chinese and follows Buddhism or Chinese Traditional beliefs. The Muslim population sits second in line, followed by a small minority of Hindus and Christians.

The traditional Buddhist approach to medicine is the practice of non-harming, or ‘ahinsa’, which forbids any form of violence or harming of a living being.

The practice of ahinsa branches out into the Hindu religion. However, their belief rests in the process of reincarnation- suggesting the breaching of ahinsa could lead to bad karma in the soul’s next life.

Muslims and Islamic laws forbid euthanasia as it is believed that ‘suffering in this life will mitigate suffering in the hereafter’. Christian ethics suggest that the intentional destruction of life cannot be condoned, however justifiable.

The Western healthcare system on the other hand, promotes the general view that patients should not suffer. This erases the stigma attached to dying, allowing patients to opt out of suffering and die with dignity. Furthermore, the declining influence of religious authority in the Western world has allowed these conversations to come to life, compared to Asian countries that refuse to let go of their anti “self-destructive’ beliefs.

While these beliefs may preserve culture and urge a population to practice determination, they fail to address the nature surrounding the human condition of chronic pain and suffering. Irony surrounds each argument as they abuse the very foundation that religions were built on– peace.

If the person close to me had a choice, I wonder if he’d want to live the way he does. Between the needles, machines, and silence, I wonder if he’d pick peace instead.

To live through a time of destruction in the form of illness, and to then choose ‘self-destruction’ is a paradox in itself. The only thing left to choose is self-liberation; and if that means euthanasia, then so be it.

1“Countries where Euthanasia is Legal/Where Is Euthanasia Legal? 2023” World Population Review, published 2023, https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/where-is-euthanasia-legal 2Nico Nortje, “Cultural Perspective on Euthanasia,” Science and Education Publishing, 1, no. 5 (August 2013): 1. Doi: 10.12691/rpbs-1-5-3

3Yuming Wang, Hui Zhang, Zhenxiang Zhang, Yue Gu & Fengmin Shao (2022) Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Comparative Analysis of Dutch and East Asian Cases, The American Journal of Bioethics, 22:2, 74-76, DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2021.2013986

4Kamaljit Singh and Goh Lee Gan, “An Asian Perspective On Euthanasia”, Australian Institute Of Policy & Science, 68, no. 3: 38-39.

Illustration by Nashitaat Islam

As It Was

Worth Its Weight In Gold

Written by Nicole

Do you possess an item worth its weight in gold?

An item whose monetary value is not high, but to you is priceless?

Perhaps it could be a ticking timepiece that once belonged to your grandfather.

Maybe a weathered image of the Blessed Mother, its edges soothed by your mother's hands for decades past.

It could be something that harkens back to a place or time when you felt pure joy or wonder.

A chipped piece of rock from the Grand Canyon, or a lucky sea shell plucked by seven-year-old you.

For me, amongst my multitudes of trinkets and toys, it is a book. Its pages have browned. Its typeface is reminiscent of an old typewriter. But its cover remains stark in colour and contrast. The book is entitled “I saw the Fall of the Philippines” by Carlos P. Romulo.

To understand why this book has etched itself permanently onto my heart and soul, we must travel back in time.

—-----

I have always been a collector. Whether it be stickers, shells, or old vinyl records, I am all-consuming. This hunger for accumulation is not only reserved for the tangible joys a band of gold with a heart-shaped stone or a dusty Dick Haymes record can bring, but also for the phantom of the past.

The older I get, the more I grow inclined to the who, what and when of days gone by. Growing up in the Philippines, the subject of history was often overlooked. The fields of business, commerce, and STEM were the most lauded, deeming the humanities “unprofitable.” Having gone to an international school for the majority of my primary and secondary school years, my peers and I were taught world history, Philippine history often reduced to a short study unit or footnote in a handout. It was not as if the school did not make any effort to educate and amplify our harrowing and heroic stories of days gone by, but it was still evident that we were on our own in illuminating most of the shadows of our nation's past. When I received my high school diploma, I knew more about Ancient Greece, Medieval Europe, and the British parliament than I did my own country’s history or system of governance.

It’s a disheartening feeling, knowing more about a foreign land's culture, history and significance than your own. Not realising that my own country’s history was just as fruitful and flowing. Unknowing of the glory and gore which occurred on the

nation's shores, I took for granted the sacrifices of those who toiled to secure the nation's freedom and future.

It was only when I moved abroad for university did I realise this lacking within me. As the saying goes, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Thus began my journey to uncover who I am as a Filipino, and to proudly state that I am from the Philippines.

—

This has been a slow but fruitful process, one built upon a small but growing collection of literature regarding Philippine history. However, I’ve noticed that the authorship of books I have found has been dominated by foreigners. While this is not a predicament in itself- these authors have poured countless hours of research and writing, seeking to illuminate a dark time in history- I have been in ardent search for literature written by and for Filipinos.

You can imagine my surprise when, from the corner of my eye, I spotted the word “Philippines” in a second-hand bookshop in Melbourne.

I doubted myself for a second. “What are the odds that actually says what I think it says?” I wondered to myself. But lo and behold, there it was. Sandwiched between the end of the bookcase and a large hardcover, a piece of Philippine history rested. It looked diminutive and unassuming amongst its surroundings titles about Gallipoli, Iwo Jima, and Vietnam. As I pulled it from its shelf I let out an audible gasp: the book was nearly perfect, both in content and physicality. The seed of doubt was replanted. “It’s probably a reprint,” I thought. As I thumbed through the first pages of the book looking for its publication details, I was once again floored. The date was 1943.

I couldn’t fathom that in a dank and dusty bookshop a continent away from home was a book older than my grandmother, older than the modern Republic itself.

I’m not sure what overcame me but I felt tears well in my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. Compounding my dumbfoundedness was the eloquence and detail that the author, Romulo, imbued into the book. It details the Fall of the Philippines during the Japanese invasion. A linear tale of destruction, desperation, and determination condensed into a single volume.

Who knew a small, dusty book would spark so much emotion in me on a winter's day? How could it be worth its weight and gold and remain unappreciated for years? Yet there it was, having waited in silence for who knows how long until the day one stray soul, in search of their identity, rediscovered its value.

Illustration by Jessica Norton

Baking bread children

Vulnerable child meets its parent(s)

Written by Michelle Yu

A parent is someone who has given birth to a child. Getting older does not mean getting wiser. There are plenty of older people who are just older people, not adults.

Can a parent's parenting make their child less than they were? Yes. Follow me.

A parent trying to shape their child: like handling a soft, fluffy pile of bread dough and shoving rough fingers into it, pinching it into a different shape with angry fingers that are white at their tips.

Some call this shaping necessary. How else will a child turn out properly otherwise?

But like a pile of dough, a child has something internal in them that drives them outwards, a powerful, expansive force that they grow themselves. Watch how the dough crawls up the side of the mixing bowl, making its own carbon dioxide, becoming smoother and firmer.

Don't you need a good environment for the child to grow up in though? Parents do that. Don't you need parents for that?

Yes. But

A piece of bread dough does indeed need warmth to rise. But a child already has that as a fact of life, as a foetus growing in its mother's warm womb.

A foetus needs to be fed water, just as bread dough needs to be hydrated, misted with water or oil to keep it moist. These facts make life viable, but they do not make a life.

Just as a baby does not do well with drugs and alcohol in its blood or milk, bread does not do well when its flour has weevils thriving in it. That is true.

But the growth of the dough, its slow expansion as it stretches its soft body into the world of its baking tray, happens quite naturally, with time, without outside interference. The baby's cells multiply, it grows longer, the bread dough grows in size; the baby is driven by an impulse to stand and the bread dough is driven upwards by the carbon dioxide bubbles bubbling into existence within it; the baby's muscles and tendons grow stronger; growing tough and stringy, gluten bonds strengthen within it the bread; one day, the bread's gluten bonds grow so strong that it holds together and passes the window test; one day, the baby's neck muscles grow strong, the fibers within it tightening and squeezing, so strong that it can hold its head upright by itself.

What about its thoughts though? How can a child know anything if the parent is not allowed to 'shape' the child? How can all this 'shaping' never be good?

Just like yeast migrating quite naturally into a dough mixture left out to sit, the child receives its information from all aspects of its outside world; teachers, friends, positive role models, if they have them. Like little specks of wild yeast collecting in the dough till it forms a culture, thoughts migrate into the child's mind till it forms a thought.

Some bacteria and fungi turn the dough mixture sour, unpleasant and inedible; some turn it tangy and delicious. The baker may try to control which collect in the dough; the parent feels, quite rightly, that only some of these should be allowed into their precious doughy creation. The question is, examine yourself closely - which of your own yeast culture are you imparting to the child dough budding off you; which of these two types of microbes are you putting into your little child dough?

Of course, baking bread is not the perfect analogy to bringing up children. A growing bread dough does not tremble and hide under the table when its parent baker slams clanging metal pans against the counter in anger; a growing bread dough does not question its existence when its bakers don't talk to each other for a fortnight; a growing bread dough does not stop growing and wish that it were a hard, solid, dead lump of dough when its parent baker doesn't talk to it for a whole week

Some parent doughs are just 'doing their best'; but perhaps it's possible that 'my best' can still be 'not good enough'. Maybe if they could pretend that they're still soft dough, pliable, not baked into a loaf of hardened bread; pretend that they are still soft and pliable, so that other people's wise thoughts can still migrate into their dough mixture like wild yeast, then perhaps some of their child bread dough will get some too. And maybe that will not just be their best, but good enough.

But some people are like hard, baked bread, their crust dry and tough; their dry insides proclaiming that they'll never reshape their ideas; I won't tell you children to sit close by and watch them crumble, green, white, black and spotty, into mould.

Otherwise, if they've kept the child dough warm and well-fed, unharmed by other toxins and ingredients, bubbling only slightly unhappily, then maybe a half thanks to these parents.

I'll leave you to decide, though, whether your parent(s) were just average bakers, or whether they've left you with so many lumps that you're not sure you will ever become a loaf of bread.

Not asking to be a $7, 32-hours-fermented artisanal sourdough with Kalamata olives, well-adjusted, thriving, delicious, but will I ever even become an average, thin-sliced $1.90 homebrand loaf from Coles?

Illustration by Nina Hughes

Maybe Peter Pan was an Axolotl

Written by iana abrigo

When we think of gods of fire and lightning, our minds probably turn to images of the mighty Hephaestus and all-powerful Zeus. And when we dream up visions of staying young forever, perhaps our minds turn to Peter Pan landing on our windowsill. According to the Aztecs, this great and glorious god of the elements now comes in the form of the axolotl – a pink slimy thing of about 22 centimetres with feathery gills and a blank stare. But you don’t need to believe Aztec mythology to revere the axolotl, as this amphibian’s contributions to science have already garnered the praise of those clad in lab coats and safety goggles. We’re prone to thinking that Neverland is some distant, make-believe place. For this silly little salamander, it’s not that far away.

As humans, our idea of adulthood is probably along the lines of doing taxes, working a nine-to-five and trying to understand big, scary words like mortgage and commitment. For amphibians, adulthood is often marked by undergoing metamorphosis wherein hormones are released to change the amphibian’s physiology to suit a semiaquatic or terrestrial environment, rather than a completely aquatic one. This may look like gills being resorbed or dermal glands being developed. All of which seems much easier than having to develop the courage to call the plumber to fix your toilet.

However, easier than an amphibian’s adulthood is that of an axolotl. Its adulthood is barely an adulthood at all as, for the most part, it reaches sexual maturity while remaining in its juvenile form. This feature of being permanently baby-faced is known as neoteny. Its failure to metamorphose can be attributed to being the top predator in its natural environment of lakes which are surrounded by desert area - thus minimal survival on land. In adult human words: why move out of home when there’s no ravenous landlord hot on your ass, the world outside is daunting and good air-conditioning is hard to come by?

Studies of the axolotl’s neoteny have helped scientists gain a better understanding of the thyroid gland and the hormone thyroxine. In studies conducted as early as the 1920s, scientists observed that feeding axolotls thyroid tissue would cause them to metamorphose. They would venture onto land and grow to look like other salamanders. Later works with axolotls would then suggest the significance of thyroxine in metamorphosis for amphibians – the greater the amount, the greater the speed of metamorphosis. However, growing up entails

1 https://medium.com/@hshearman45/axolotls-are-also-named-after-the-ancient-aztec-godxolotl-20ba6fb9435

2 https://www.britannica.com/animal/amphibian/Larval-stage

3 Natural History, Ecology and Evolution of Mexican ‘Axolotls’, H. Bradley Shaffer, Department of Zoology, University of California.

4 The history of the oldest self-sustaining laboratory animal: 150 years of axolotl research: 150 YEARS OF AXOLOTL RESEARCH, C. Reiẞ, U. Hossfeld, L. Olsson, Journal of Experimental Zoology

Part B Molecular and Developmental Evolution (2015)

5 Metamorphosis of Axolotl caused by Thyroid-feeding, J. S. Huxley, Nature (1920).

6 Application of the Axolotl Metamorphosis Reaction to the Quantitative Assay of Thyroid Gland

sacrifice. For us, this sacrifice may be no longer having the time to play Animal Crossing. For amphibians, this means the loss of the crucial power of regeneration.

When in the larval stages, amphibians have the ability to regenerate their limbs. This is lost when they metamorphose. Axolotls generally do not metamorphose and thereby retain this ability, though this becomes more difficult as they age. Typically, regeneration occurs when a layer of cells cover the location of amputation. These cells would then divide to become a coneshape known as a blastema. They then dedifferentiate (lose their defining traits as a cell) to become similar to a stem cell – meaning it can become any type of cell it wants. Then comes the process of re-differentiation and re-development. But why does any of this matter? Even if an axolotl wrote a step-by-step guide called Regeneration for Dummies, it’d be impossible for humans to follow such an insane process.

But when has ‘impossible’ ever stopped us ‘dummies’?

Though it all seems very far away, scientists view the axolotl as a model for regeneration technologies so those with lost limbs or severe burns may have a new means for treatment. Scientists are now aware of the role of the immune system in regeneration - especially the significance of macrophages. When they are removed from axolotls, amputation merely leads to the growth of scar tissue rather than a new limb. This scarring is similar to scarring within humans which is reliant on the protein ‘collagen’. Scientists have also found that a protein known as Transforming Growth Factor-ẞ, present in the human body during the first trimester, is crucial for regeneration among axolotls.

However, scientific ventures are only as good as the ethics behind them. It’s still important to treat axolotls properly within labs. Moreover, due to human activity disturbing their natural habitat, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to breed and the species has become critically endangered. In an attempt to counter this, scientists are planning on releasing captive axolotls back into their lakes of origin or perhaps even find them a new home in the wild.

So when Peter Pan crashes through your window as a baby-faced axolotl with a wide head, thoughtless eyes and the ability to regenerate its brain – don’t turn him away. Perhaps give him a glass of water for Xolotl’s sake!

Hormones, B. M. Zavadovsky, MME. E. V. Zavadovsky, Endocrinology (1926).

7 Advancements to the Axolotl Model for Regeneration and Aging, W.A Vieira, K.M. Wells, C.D. McCusker, 2020.

8 https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/regeneration-axolotl-can-teach-us-regrowing-human-limbs/

9 https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/regeneration-axolotl-can-teach-us-regrowing-human-limbs/

10 Transforming Growth Factor: ẞ Signaling is Essential for Limb Regeneration in Axolotls, M. Levesque, S. Gatien, K. Finnson, S. Desmeules et al., 2007.

Illustration by Emma Bui

There Is Something In The Water The Dolls in the Dollhouse

Written by Donna Ferdinando

Porcelain sculpted faces and eyes line the shelves of a narrow room. Swathed in frills and pearls galore, the irises of their eyes are somewhat bug-like: hard, black-sheened and curiously mobile. Their owner—a bubbly lady clad in gothic, Wednesday Addams-esque lace—has adopted them into her home along with the spirits that reside within them. Carefully angled cameras capture a swivelling eyeball, a slowly raised hand and a casual shift of a miniscule lace skirt.

She speaks to them as if they were her own children. A handheld EVP machine captures static and disembodied voices, and everyday a new doll seems to appear from under a bush, next to a driveway or behind an assuming garden gnome.

Dolls, at this point, are a staple of the horror genre in both film and within certain social media niches. To my eternal terror, they have evolved from unassuming yet eerie toys, to full-fledged supernatural entities that delight in torture—and they are everywhere. Studio A24’s Hereditary features puppet-like miniature dolls resembling the main characters. They foretell each and every one of the characters’ gory demises. And who can forget the infamous dwelling-of-a-plausible-biblical-demon Annabelle, star of The Conjuring franchise and several YouTube investigations? Sure, The Conjuring uses a far more eerie prop to represent Annabelle (and has convinced us, against all odds, that a sane child would be happy to play with her). But the “real” Annabelle is but a simple, Raggedy Ann doll with red braids, a kind smile and soft, cotton hands. And yet, despite this obvious breach between fictional and non-fictional, I cannot bring myself to even look at a Raggedy Ann doll, or even the vacant-eyed Barbies from my own childhood (they remain securely locked within my attic. Had I had my way, however, I would have enjoyed them in a bonfire.)

What makes them uncanny? Why is it that every time I walk into a room with so much as a single doll, I can imagine its beady eyes piercing each and every knob of my spine? Why is that when Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara (of YouTube’s Watcher and Buzzfeed Unsolved) casually mock Annabelle to her face, every ounce of scepticism leaves my body to be replaced with the singular thought, “Well, they fucked up”?

The first is obvious. There are just far too many stories of creepy dolls, possessed dolls, deranged dolls and creepy children-toting dolls for one to be reasonably unafraid of dolls anymore. Perhaps I am being paranoid, or perhaps I have watched far too many horror movies in my short 21 years on this planet. But when there is a creepy doll, an entity of some sort is sure to follow, and I would rather take my chances with a serial killer than a random shadow-person residing rent-free in my apartment.

There is also the fact that dolls are strangely human in appearance and in manner. Their human-like appearance is self-explanatory. They are made in our image; eyes, mouth, nose, ears and all. Children force them to imitate human actions. They stare and watch, just as man does. Their plastic joints swivel and are just as easily broken as our human ones. In serving as creator/craftsman, man is a doll's creator; these porcelains creep man’s child. Is it the fact that this inanimate object is a bit too close to human likeness that freaks the bejesus out of us? Or is it that human creativity has gone so far as to embed something of the human essence within a vessel of porcelain; a breath of life, in other words? Or maybe it’s just a good old-fashioned ghost.

A friend of mine posed yet another intriguing perspective: the doll as the manifestation of human insecurities concerning perfection. A doll can be perfect. Its features may be adjusted to achieve perfection. It is a controlled organism created in a controlled environment. Man, on the other hand, is not. One simply cannot paint what one likes on one’s face in any permanent manner. A doll represents what man could be physically; its dollhouse what man’s life could look like. And man, in failing to achieve perfection, resents the doll, and thereby this porcelain artefact becomes a vessel to a truly monstrous hideous spirit borne of man’s fears and self-hatred.

I am not well-versed in the spiritual or the supernatural. I believe what I see, or what I believe to be logical, or what I think to be intriguing, thrilling and amusing to my goldfish brain. Yet, this logic-seeking, this search for an explanation to the uncanny doll phenomenon, simply does not quell my basest human instincts. There is something in the corner of my room. I know it is there. It is not alive. It does not move. And yet? It watches from its dollhouse.

Illustration by Jessica Norton

Content warnings: Expletives and mild coarse language

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

Everything, Everywhere, Somewhat at Once

Written by Claire Le Blond

Fiddlesticks.

You’re here again.

All of you.

Clearly, all of you, tucked away in your own little words, trespassing into this humble, tumbledown space I call my own. At minimum, you could have knocked.

You’re here again.

You’re here for certain, where there is an idea. An idea that lingers, languishes even. It settles in the soil, thick like cobwebs along the footpaths. Walk through the ghost-white trails, the murmurs of stories-past finding their uncouth roots in unwilling crevices, openings waiting to be filled with fungal suggestions, festering thoughts, and fucked-up sentences. They burrow, breaking their unwelcome way into this garden of minds and matters. Here, in this garden. Here, in this humble, tumbledown space I call my own, is where I am. You should be anywhere but here again.

But where exactly is here?

Here, in this setting–

You ask.

-what is this setting?

-in fact, what is setting?

One of the most important things about writing a novel – outside of the overly curated playlists and choice of socks – is setting

Where is your story taking place? I’d prefer that it wasn’t here; this is my story, not yours.

Where, amongst the millennia of images, real and imagined, is your novel being positioned? Perhaps it’s the classic bookstore or darkened library, the homely scent of aged paper wafting about candlelit rooms. Where the plush curve of patchwork armchairs slides against your hands, soft fabric brushing against the writer’s calluses on your middle finger. Rain patters outside, offering a humble rhythm to accompany the melody of the thoughts in your mind as you relax into the setting. Then, writing, writing, away until the story finds itself at a manageable peace.

Perhaps it’s that. But outside of that, there are more questions to ask about where your novel may be.

What surrounds setting?

There’s a certain madness in setting. After all, one can’t truly see where the novel finds itself. There’s a mild relief in this insanity, the tap, tap, tapping of a tiny tattoo gun on tinted skin. The novel wheezes, dry, earthy air rising like the air in a sauna, steaming together with words and memories. Kaleidoscope eyes sparkle at the cruel, cruel, colourless world. Yet, the novel finds solace, dancing alongside all the possible, whirling stories that can.

There’s also joy. Safety. Being placed amidst laughter, of all kinds, intoxicated by serenity and soju. Cheeks weary from the smiles that go from ear to ear, lying on a couch with the blissful poetry that can be found in the curl of your friend’s hair. There can be peace in setting, in the mundane glory within the sacrosanct pleasure of being in the company of someone you care for in all the ways that matter. Every story needs its peace.

One can’t forget fear. One must never forget fear. It is only the bravest of all that find their way through the terrors. It’s the hurried ostinatos that emulate from your knees, feet tap, tap, tapping against a splintered, rotting table. Dry, earthy air rises again along your withered tongue, but the sauna’s locked and if you close your eyes that taste will be the metallic roughness of the soil in your own unhallowed grave. The coffin dangles over a void of lost ideas and misplaced motivation, daring you to embrace the setting if you so choose.

The void stares back. If you’re polite, it offers a word or two on grammar. And we must ask: Where in the heavens are we?

This is why we must have setting.

One’s novel must know where it will be. Where the story will begin, continue, and end (if it ever ends).

The position, the act of taking place in a new space that defines the novel. The characters, the people that live between the realm of the living and those who no longer have to deal with living – they must have their here. There are many parts to play. There must be somewhere to play it. Widen the void, give it breadth, depth, and grief. It’s always there. That tragic knowledge that in some time, the realm you’ve created will cease to exist with the final turn of the page, back to the empty feeling that comes from finishing a book.

It even defines the work that goes into the novel. Where do you, the author, write your novel? What is your setting?

As a writer, I am familiar with the void. Not exactly an old friend. Not truthfully an acquaintance. The void sits with me, a streetlamp at a lonely bus stop along a road with little else but light. Speckled, muted, quiet. Always, always, here again.

Illustration by Felicity Yiran Smith

Consent ‘Matters’: Mixed Messaging in Consent Education

Written by Pamela Piechowicz

In March of 2021, the National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) found that 18.5% of respondents had experienced sexual harassment within a university context and 5.5% had been assaulted since beginning university. The University of Melbourne also released its annual report on sexual misconduct at the end of the same year, noting that the formation of the Respect Taskforce, online training modules and other initiatives had not made a large enough dent in the number of on-campus cases of sexual assault.

The University of Melbourne’s official statements take a hard stance against any sort of misconduct—on a video on page one of these modules, Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell declared with great intensity over drone shots of the Parkville campus, on behalf of both himself and the University, that people who commit sexual assault are not welcome at the institution. He also made this the primary focus of his Arts Commencement Ceremony speech in 2020.

I assume most if not all students have come across the Consent Matters page on Canvas that debuted in 2019. The cover photo features a closeup of three friends smiling and generally having a good time, which is presumably the outcome of completing this course—stronger, healthier and more respectful relationships. Does it achieve this aim though?

Consent Matters is split across three modules, each focusing on a different theme, including ‘Thinking about Consent’, ‘Communication Skills and Relationships’ and ‘Looking out for Others’. The course takes approximately 60 to 90 minutes to complete in total and is mandatory in order to graduate. In a Honi Soit article1 published recently about the University of Sydney’s own consent course developed by the same consent consultant, Alan Berkowitz, students reported being unaware that it was required until they were unable to graduate on time, raising the question as to why such a crucial course can be left until the very last minute. Surely, in order to be most effective, it should be completed as a requirement to begin or at least end the first semester, when O-Week and college parties are at their worst.

The modules on their own are not particularly egregious—they provide decent information regarding sexual myths as well as resources for sexual health, reporting misconduct and how to support victims, all while being culturally sensitive and queer-inclusive. Berkowitz’s literature seems to reflect this, expressing how imperative it is that consent is discussed early and in ways that are sensitive to the biases and needs of various groups, especially men, to reduce incidents.

The issue lies in trying to juggle a nuanced discussion, practical advice for students and accessibility for those who find the topic icky or confronting. The existence of cultural differences is mentioned, but none of them are elaborated on. Content is often delivered through stick-figure style animations where

interactions between agents are also cartoon-like and very simple. Conflict is resolved with more ease than most scenarios in real life, where it often feels easier to renege on one’s own boundaries to avoid compromising close relationships or opportunities. The later interactive components amend this issue, but by the time the student gets to the last module, there is less engagement and the message isn’t getting across. In its report, the NSSS also found that only 50% of respondents knew where to seek guidance or report any incidents. This could easily be amended by making the course dual delivery for accessibility, taught in classrooms by sexual health experts so students can have their own input rather than having content dictated to them.

There is a list of services provided at the end of every module, ranging from the University’s internal programs, such as the Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and UMSU, as well as external avenues such as 1800RESPECT and Victoria Police. However, the interests of the University as a profit-generating and public relations powerhouse versus an institution genuinely serving the best interests of students are in continual conflict.

In 2021, five staff members left the University due to well-substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct2. While some were sacked and another’s contract was simply not renewed, one maintained their role as Laureate Professor and Rowden-White chair. At this time, the University refused to comment on whether any disciplinary action was taken against the professor.

In 2016, a PhD student underwent the exact steps that are laid out across the Consent Matters modules—as did victims of the same professor as early as 2009, and again in 20123, notifying the University and escalating matters to Victoria Police months later. Instead of taking the no-tolerance approach he espoused, Duncan Maskell decided to make a measly attempt at protecting the University’s reputation via settlement after threatening to cancel the more recent student’s studies during stress leave, ushering the predatory professor away with hushed compliments and non-descript emails notifying the student body of his ‘retirement’.

The Consent Matters program offers a decent start to addressing sexual misconduct within University grounds, but the format undermines it. The cartoon figures in these videos are treated with more care and respect than any real, human victim.

Content warnings: The following content has mentions of sexual misconduct that may be triggering for some readers.

Keep Cup

Written by Amy Huynh

When I was in my first year of university, there was a suicide on campus the morning after Easter break. It was in the building where I had Mind, Brain and Behaviour 1; a psychology subject accredited by the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council. Psychology: subject matter so intricate and important and profound, MBB1: a class so lack-lustre and meatless, I treated myself to a coffee afterwards every time.

I didn’t know the person. An anonymous peer. After it happened, I had to wonder if anyone even did. Everyone here is faceless, and there was no official news of anything. They don’t publicise these things to avoid copycat events, I hear. Does that not feel wrong? To go on without a mention?

On r/unimelb:

"I know they can’t close uni for a day but it feels weird.”

Though I’m thankful to see a glimpse of something real, something I understand, even I know that that sounds outlandish. People say that the commenter must be a first year. That one person’s life and death cannot ripple such an effect in the #1 university in Australia.

I read coroner’s reports, trying to find something. A name, an age, a story. I come to appreciate messages to the deceased left by loved ones, but in their absence, this is sadly another peer I will never know.

More and more, I am confronted by the way people decide to live their life and spend their time. I see the way they find things to do, jobs to go to, subjects to study, inconveniences to complain about, people to meet, to love, to marry, to have children with. How we scramble for time to do what we love, sacrifice it by doing what we hate and amidst it all, try to find ways to ‘kill time.’ I suppose it’s the typical capitalist world most people come to question, hate, then accept, and then if lucky, enjoy.

Now, I have become obsessed with writing about my current life from a future perspective. As if I’ve already made it through everything that is happening to me now. But I can’t write my way to the future. Because I am still here, walking to another MBB1 class, trying to kill time.

Prior to uni, I had always tried to avoid coffee. I didn’t want that shtick or dependency. Coffee worked for some people. They were ‘that girl’, living by the mantra ‘you do you’ with confidence and a keep cup in hand.

Unimelb is filled with ‘that girl.’ There’s the Bachelor of Design that girl. Minimalist and clean. I also see many boys and non-binary people being ‘that girl.’ Well fitted, with no compromise to their individuality. There’s the Bachelor of Commerce ‘that girl’, ready to network and consult. There’s the Arts 'that girl’, best thrifted clothes, always chill, or stressed but in a cool way, ‘so not ready to stop being a student!’ All of these ‘that girls’ perpetually drink coffee.

During Easter break, my cousin took me to a pottery class where I decided that I would make my own keep cup. I would be on my way to being ‘that girl.’ The clay lay in front of me, letting me decide its future, a blank slate to mould into whatever I wanted. I felt its softness. Its calm concrete colour. The greyness of being both soft and hard. I let it dry.

The next class, I was to glaze my cup. Essentially, paint it in the special ceramic way. I am to hold my cup and plop it into the bucket, scooping it wrist down for a washed over effect. Dry clay will become wet in the glaze. I’m dipping my cup in the bucket at the angle I memorised, my ticket to guilt-free indulgence and productivity. In my excitement, I squeeze and feel the weight lighten in my hand. The bottom has hit the floor. I’m left with two rectangular clumps. Not fully rectangular and sharp, but not fully circular and smooth either. Just in between and broken.

I’m not surprised but I try not to look disappointed. My cousin is upset, maybe a bit embarrassed. She tells me that I can clump it into a ball again now that it’s wet and remould it back into my cup. But I don’t really want a cup anymore.

In life, everyone has a different keep cup set up for them, bound to them; their driving force, their purpose, maybe their passion.

Mine is dissatisfaction. I am one of the unlucky ones born without a passion, one of those sad children born lacking, missing something. Despite everything else full and privileged in my childhood, I will spend the rest of my life searching for something, never feeling quite satisfied or like I’m where I’m meant to be.

I’ve always wanted to go to a psychic for it. Maybe they’d give me some meaning, a great revelation. But maybe that would just be something else I would save in an Instagram album labelled ‘think about later’ and never think of again. One day though, I came across a TikTok that stuck. About how this guy reversed his ageing. He tells me to meditate.

Diary entry 07.08.22

I WANT TO BE BETTER. I need to meditate. And I need to wear sunscreen. Drink heaps of water. Reignite ur creativity. Stretch. Journal - in the morning? At night? Feel fresh water. Spend time in sun. Learn more Viet. Take more pictures. read. Love fruits. Do my skincare. Brush my teeth.

I could use some age reversing. I could be that girl.

Ceramic, in all its firm and tactical glory, crumbles when wet. I realise that even ‘that girl’, made of the purest, calmest ceramic, crumbles. Her gift is not just being put together, but that she can remould. Change directions. Clay only need soak a little before it can have a revelation, change a little shape. Live in its lumpy limbo state and then be shaped and glazed another colour.

I have a new class today, a creative writing class. There, I see that there is value to my lostness, colour in my grey. That a broken clump is still a shape. I learn that the people in my class, in their own way, are more than ‘that girl’. They’re nuanced and imperfect and more interesting. I’m sure my anonymous peer was too - had I the privilege of meeting them. Perhaps to the both of us, people here are still intimidating, sometimes too absorbed, but now I see that sometimes, they are also admirable. Also scared. They are our partners in this trek. Our collaborators, observers, seekers, they are my potential friends.

Today, the lump of clay sits on my desk. It’s too big to glaze as a whole but I wish I could. I would glaze it all. It is beautiful and fine, in all its own distortedness, all its unknowingness. And one day, when I decide I don’t like that, I should simply plop it into a bucket and let it become soft again

Illustration by Nashitaat Islam

Content warnings: References to war, violence, bullying, mentions of death

Solidarity

Written by Ola Wallis

Warsaw in the early 1980s was one long winter. Pissstained snow was shovelled into brown clumps by the side of uneven and fragmented roads. Children shivered in five-metre square apartment rooms, their clothes patched with worn old curtains and blankets. The whole city was grey, lined with rows of identical block apartments arranged like faded, old Lego.

Martyna Sobecka, a Warsaw architecture expert, identified these blocks as part of the “brutalist” style, a name revealing of their severe aesthetic and harsh living conditions. Warsaw was a “concrete Siberia”, perpetually on the brink of crumbling into rubble. Like everything back then, no building was ever finished and there was never enough incentive to do the job well. Even bread-making cut corners; flour mixed with wood shavings made a dough so brittle it would slice children’s gums. Amongst the hunger and fear, life moved at a vastly different pace to now.

Political writer Sławomir Sierakowski described the 1980s as “a sticky, slow reality where everything happened without haste, and nothing worked”. By 1981, the communist government owed foreign powers over $27 billion in debt, leaving most produce to be bartered through the black market. Most parents had to work two jobs just to afford some ‘luxury’ products like coffee and, “god forbid”, Mum would say, “fake chocolate”.

Mum’s voice would always have this amazing way of curling around every syllable as she told me these stories of when she was my age. I interviewed my mum to recount these stories on record in Polish, and later translated. She had this way of navigating the Polish language like a song, light and sweet, unimpeded by the harsh English language. As a child I would lie, my head resting on her legs as she retold and skilfully weaved each story into the early hours of the morning.

Mum’s tongue would be set ablaze when she sensed an injustice. At fifteen, it was this ferocious confi-

dence that was weaponized against an English teacher in defence of her classmate, Beata.

“Beata’s face went from red to white. I remember the teacher would stand behind her, spitting out insults, trying to humiliate her. She would laugh at Beata and say something like ‘well look at you, now you’re going red, can’t you speak properly?’ At that point, I thought she was going to faint. How could I let that grown woman keep torturing this sweet girl?”

Mum told me she didn’t know what she shouted that day, but she yelled until she simply could not yell anymore, a tirade of noise exploding from her mouth. The daily bullying miraculously ceased by that teacher the next day.

But “Tak to było” (that’s how it was), Mum would wave her hand nonchalantly. Kindness and survival seeped into everyday life. People upheld their own ideas of justice. “You would give soup to neighbours who couldn’t afford food”, she said. You would jokingly say “hej” (hey) to that familiar third party who breathed down the end of your phone line, recording your conversations for the Secret Police.

The threat of death no longer seemed worth feigning party patriotism. Mandatory propaganda announcements on TV spun tales of Soviet glory for millions of blank TV screens.

In September of 1980, unrest had reached a boiling point. The hunger and layoffs in the Gdańsk Shipyards culminated in a strike of over 17,000 workers against the communist government, forming the Solidarność (Solidarity) Union. Within one week, Solidarity already gathered ten million members throughout the country, according to official records. Poland was shut into martial law by December 1981, a desperate clamour for communist government control over the restless Polish people.

It was the summers that brought the city to a “total paralysis”, Mum told me. It was warm enough then to strike and protest without fear of starvation. “I got caught once in a protest. In one minute, the whole square was flooded with hundreds of thousands of protestors. The crowd pushed me to the frontline. I stood maybe just ten metres away from the militia- I could literally see their eyes under their helmets as they stood with a baton and shield in either hand, ready to fight.” She dropped to all fours and crawled to escape, seconds before the violence erupted. It was a chaos of screams and flesh pounding into flesh. After the end of martial law in 1983, there was an atmosphere of insurrection; people knew the government was beginning to rot, and defiance was more daring. Mum was desperate to join.

Solidarity gazettes were stacked neatly in Mum’s school bag at twelve years old, nestled beneath ‘smalec’ sandwiches with greasy, butter covered newspaper to ward off militia. “Ej tam!(don’t be silly),” Mum would laugh when I was little, rolling her eyes at me as I lay snuggled under the comfort of her doona. “Oczewiście! (Of course) I was followed by informers. Anytime I needed to stop to tie my shoelaces, a figure would stop suddenly behind me. Pffft and what, you thought I wouldn’t notice?” she laughed, tapping her index finger to her forehead knowingly.

“There was no real fear,” Mum told me when I asked. I don’t know if I believe her.

I thought back to Mum’s story of her grandmother. She had witnessed a pregnant Jewish woman, who she was harbouring in her attic, get shot in front of her and her children (my grandpa and his brother), after being discovered by Nazi officers. My great-grandma had to cover my 5-year-old dziadzia’s (grandpa’s) eyes as bullets tore through the young woman, killing her and her unborn child. “I would guess she had many nights where that woman would come back in her dreams, because, you know, that sort of trauma never disappears, never. But she never thought about that I don’t think. It was about survival. It was just about living that one day, living from that hour to the next and protecting her boys. She had to keep moving.” Mum told me, as I sat in silent shock, unable to imagine being able to survive such an experience myself. But this was normal back then. I think the best way to understand this resilience is, as put by Lech Wałᶒsa, that "deep faith eliminates fear".

When I asked her, Mum said the only time she felt “real fear” was when her older brother, Paweł, was being chased down by the militia. He and his friends set up a portable TV broadcasting station in a van that drove around his suburb Praga, illegally broadcasting Solidarity news to houses on the receiving TV channel. But on this one occasion, after countless missions, he was discovered by a receiver in a rival militia van that had finally intercepted his frequency. Through the cold autumn night, he sprinted through Warsaw, trudging through slushy gutters, and hiding the evidence of the broadcasting equipment on his way. At his parents’ apartment it was past 19:00, the cut off time. Something was wrong. Someone rang the flat in code- Paweł was getting tailed. Mum said the “dread was like a weight in [her] stomach”. She stood there “frozen, totally unable to move” in terror, as her parents packed their suitcases and frantically offloaded Solidarity gazettes to neighbours. They had practiced this route so that even when panic blurred their thoughts and made their bodies shudder, they could destroy all proof of alliance with Solidarity. “They had to make sure there was no trace of evidence”, Mum said. She never told me what would have happened if the militia had found any. Her parents returned, ten minutes later, “sweat streaming down their faces”.

But no-one ever came.

Paweł came home the next day. Mum told me she didn’t remember all the details of that night. All the same, she would never forget the feeling of “total dread” that they would come in the night and take her family. “You never knew if they would just have a stern word with you, or torture and murder you. It was how they kept the power, we just could never know. But I guess that’s all it was - a fear tactic.”

I don’t know if I should be surprised that fear never really stopped Solidarity. But I think tak to było (that’s how it was), these were ordinary people who fought for one another. I remember years ago, when I was little Mum said “of course you would do the same”, as I lay, looking up at her in wonder, curled up to her warmth.

I hope I would.

Adult Teeth

Written by Hugo Russell

I’ve been very disciplined. This is what I tell my dentist. The new dentist that I found on my own with only three phone calls to Dad for advice.

I’ve been very disciplined because I’ve been wearing my retainer, every night when I go to bed. I even had a new one made after the original broke.

I recall biting down and a crack resonating through my head. Then hesitantly releasing my jaw to survey the damage. Was that a piece of me or a piece of it? These are the questions you become familiar with once you’ve had braces. The binary opposition; synthetic and organic, metal and bone, foreign and bodily. It and me. The mouth becomes the abject, its image alienating. The wires, bands, and plastics infiltrate the body and it is hard to determine where they begin and you end.

My new plastic retainer is a snug fit. It takes a pair of fingernails to work it from my teeth in the morning. The distinct musk of old saliva blooms inside my mouth.

As I gradually wade into adulthood I find the sand bank drops off quickly. My experience is not unique, in fact we collectively anticipate adulting for most of our adolescence. But memory fails incremental change. Perhaps this is why we value milestones so much — our means of convincing ourselves that change has occurred. I don’t recall a substantial crossing of the threshold into adulthood, although I am now, essentially, an adult.

I am frequently made aware of my own adulthood. The sensation is surreal. I flip between assuredness and alienation. In these moments of lucidity I reflect on the structures at work that make me an adult. I observe how independence manifests in waves: personal, financial, medical. My focus often doesn’t extend far beyond my mouth.

The braces phenomenon is perplexing to me. It is an expensive and uncomfortable exercise with ambiguous return on investment. In conversation about braces many people remark upon good fortune; upon being born with teeth not in need of straightening. In this sense, braces are not desirable — you are lucky to avoid them — and yet we perpetuate a collective obsession with straightened smiles. I can’t speak for those who have had real structural work, the orthodontic martyrs — I extend my utmost respect to these people. As someone whose teeth-straightening was cosmetically inclined, it seems that this dental pre-occupation is telling of broader social conditions.

I received a plastic model of my top set of teeth with my new retainer. It’s a mould for any future replacements. It is strange. A toscale replica, 3D printed in grey plastic, which fits in the palm of my hand. I took it home and thoroughly examined it. My name is etched into the plastic on the inside by the molars, I thought this was a nice touch. I held it at eye level, facing me to see what my own smile looks like. I didn’t like it very much. The teeth looked so big without any lips around them. I started to feel weird.

If you’ve ever had an X-Ray or MRI you might be familiar with the sensation of looking at an image of yourself and not recognising it. That feeling of seeing those perfectly spherical eyes on the radiographer’s computer screen and not possibly imagining how they’re the same ones seated behind your eyelids.

The teeth are alienating but undeniably mine. It begs the question, under what circumstances will they become familiar? Whose face do these teeth belong inside if not mine at age nineteen? Does this person have a degree? A job in their preferred industry? Did they follow through with education? Heaven forbid they are still in hospitality.

My first year of university has presented me with new anxieties. Nothing serious or debilitating. The kind that gets your arse into gear, to quote my Mum. I’ve been perpetually planning. Writing lists. Conceptualising subject selections that extend years into the future. I do this in the shower, on the tram home, and in bed in the evening. There’s a sense that these years are my opportunity to arrange my adult life before I set things into motion. If I just plan correctly, arranging the dominos neatly, they will fall flawlessly across a fulfilling adulthood.

Sometimes I feel that I’m off to a good start. I live independently and share a flat with my girlfriend. We successfully moved interstate to go to uni in Melbourne. I am reading more than I ever have in the past. I’ve even started buying healthier snacks for my packed lunches: dried figs, dates, almonds, cacao nibs, and banana chips. These are the things that I imagine adults do.

Other things I struggle with. Adults do their tax returns and put the bins out every week. Adults pull the matted hair-monster out of the plug hole so that the bathtub doesn’t fill up when they take a shower. Adults look in the mirror and see an adult looking back. At least I think so.

I was enthusiastic about having braces as a kid. Not about having straight teeth but actually having braces. I recall the excitement as being comparable to that which comes about when an injury is suspected to warrant a plaster cast.

My dad explained the concept of confirmation bias to me around this time. We are more judgemental than we like to think, and many of us preference others with conventional appearances — others that look like us. It’s about first impressions, you are more likely to be taken seriously if you have straight teeth—

“Say if you’re going for a job interview,” I imagine Mum interjecting, “it puts some at an unfortunate disadvantage, but we are in the position to get you braces.”

This was the reasoning.

It’s important to consider how privilege is entwined with cosmetic dentistry. Our teeth-straightening obsession speaks to the most superficial aspects of class, capitalism, and commodification. Those privileged enough are afforded straightened teeth, which streamline their entry into the workforce. As workers, whose income brackets are contingent upon the straightness of their smile, these people save money to straighten the teeth of future generations. So the cycle continues, literally defining the face of privilege.

In hindsight I recognise the substantial investment that my parents made in my future by electing for me to have braces. I am enormously grateful to experience the privilege of a visually conventional mouth.

I despised the notion of office work as a teenager. I looked at nine-to-five commuters on the bus with incredulity. It seemed the worst possible life choice to pursue a job that required corporate attire.

Now I catch myself fantasising about a career and income stability. I don’t experience financial insecurity but find it conceivable. I theorise about the best means of saving money and if it’ll ever be feasible for me to buy a house. I’d quite like to get a tattoo but maybe somewhere that is easily covered by an item of clothing. I wonder if a prospective employer would take issue with tattoos.

I recognise that this is a privileged mindset, one informed by braces.

There is something inherently forward-looking about braces. They are constantly prompting thought of the future. Dentists recommend kids have braces in their early adolescence — these things only get harder to fix as you get older. And now, providing I perform all the routine maintenance correctly, my straightened smile should remain this way indefinitely.

There’s also a constant struggle involved in future-proofing the corrected smile. Teeth have a perpetual determination to shift, albeit ever so slowly. In response to the impermanence of a freshly straightened set of teeth there are permanent orthodontic solutions.

As I take responsibility for my own dental health I realise how this corresponds to my entry into adulthood. I’ll essentially remain independent and personally responsible from here on. Sometimes I reminisce about a simpler stage of life, but I am optimistic that I will improve at adulting.

Once you’ve had braces you never really stop having them. Not unless you undo all the hard work.

Reading Love

Written by John Porter

We owe each other everything. These are the words read aloud to me on a Sunday afternoon beneath an open sky. These are the words Stefano Harney and Fred Moten give our group to feast on for the summer months. The words draw me back to a community hall in north Dubbo, sitting in my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in my teenage years. As we gathered together after the customary Styrofoam encased tea and coffee, a man spoke of the reasons he came to tell his truth each week. He said: “I come here each week not because I want to tell my story, but because I get to hear my story in another person's voice.”

Every week I listen to the stories of friends and strangers. The words “reading group” are littered throughout my planner like leaves fallen from a tree, my entire week clad in readerly scaffold. In the world of atomised and alienated beings, to read together is to slowly gesture towards a closer world. It is to intimate intimacy—it is to initiate intimacy. But the question still remains—what do we do when we read?

It's simple for some—your eyes dart across the page or computer screen. You highlight and underline, and maybe you scribble between words with contributions of your own. But ultimately, all roads lead to the chair. The disciplined body. The disciple. The discipline itself. We sit down and stare for hours on end, necks craned and backs arched. This is our prayer, we say. This is our homework, we say. But I don’t want to do homework. I want to lay groundwork. I want to open the world via a book in my hand. I want to open the world via a body in front of me. I want to leave space for the other to occupy the territory of my heart labelled love. I don’t want the retreat into oneself but the embrace of each other. This is why I read. To read is to be still. To read is to pause. To read is to think, to sing, to dance and to fuck to the sensuous joys of life. To read is to be presented with a gift, but we are so often unequipped to receive the full weight of its presence.

People don't come to reading groups for books. They come to reading groups for people. They come to groups the same way bell hooks came to theory—because they are hurting. Yet when those same groups prioritise the act of reading over people, they alert those present that they want their books but not their bodies, their texts but not their tears. This dominant mode of presentation fits neatly within a long history of the western subject. From Descartes onwards we are split in two—a mind and a body divorced. When the dualism of the cartesian subject is believed, the whole self is schismed down the middle. We mistake reading the political for politics itself. We sublimate our desire to change things because the system has fucked us over by pouring ourselves into study. ‘If only we had one more analysis of deuteronomy’. ‘If only nobody missed that line from Nietzsche’. ‘If only we had just read one more text’. But the texts we leave behind are the missed opportunities we have when we come together. The laughs, the smiles, the meals. The very fucking material substrata of our life atrophies when we have to discipline ourselves into sitting still trading monologue for monologue. We fail our rebellion against atomisation, and a thousand missed chances accumulate with every fleeting feeling ignored.

When we read in this way as individuals, we neglect the transformative power of being together. Perhaps I am too used to being around people, but the etchings that the other can make on one’s body are permanent. If we simply give them the chance to draw on the lines of our life, we present love a chance to wash over us. We cleanse the stench of individualism that reeks through western history. What difference is a pedagogical practice of ours from the universities if we fail to even look someone in the eye and tell them “Thank you for coming”. We can never know how hard it is for a body to move through space.

If we cannot appreciate the steps a person makes to commune with a room of strangers, we ultimately have no ground to claim that we are doing politics. The process of forming connection, of destroying the individual that resides in us all, appears unsexy to the seasoned ‘activist’. But these ‘activists’ do politics in the way that some groups read—they preserve the individual, they fill their CVs, they present their conferences, and they harvest clout like a fucking farmer. They want to dominate a room through their intellect. What use is intelligence if it is mobilised to isolate others? Is this even fucking intelligence if it comes with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the care of a crowbar?

So, if we are to kill the individual, we need a new theory of being together. We need to understand that a human is not a fixed point in either space or time, but a bundle of traces and histories. We are tightly bound pieces of paper that if unfolded would reveal the full swathe of humanity. If we are material, if we have materials, then let us write together. Let the collective sum of our heartbeats sing in choral unison as the words shower down upon us. Let us trace one another's lives and loves, and let us read together.

With love, John

Skin // care

Written by Pavani Athukorala

For the first 11 years of my life, I had clear skin. The kind a romance novelist would call caramel-coloured, smooth as a baby’s bottom, with the sort of even texture and invisible pores reserved for children and celebrities and the genetically blessed.

Enter puberty, stage left. We all know what followed: breasts and blood and other mundane female horrors, too banal to bear repeating. But in my case, behind them trailed an unexpected guest. A chronic, incurable skin condition that brought with it pain and shame, and soon consumed my life. Hidradenitis suppurativa, or HS for short.

HS is devastatingly simple in its design. A hard lump the size of, say, a rosary bead appears beneath your skin, triggered by genetics, diet, hormones, Mercury being in retrograde and/or the wrath of God. This is a flare. It swells (grape-sized if you’re lucky, strawberry if you’re not), filling with pus and blood. Eventually, when the pain has reached a fever pitch so intense that you’re seriously considering lancing yourself with a safety pin, it ruptures, bleeds and heals. Then, a brief respite before the cycle begins anew. Swell, rupture, heal, repeat. Over time, a catacomb-like network of subterranean scars develops in areas prone to flares. The skin on those areas pucker, becoming raised and knotted to the touch.

Despite being prevalent and often debilitating, HS remains under researched. Its causes are not well understood, and Western medicine offers no cure. While treatments to manage its symptoms exist, many are often prohibitively expensive and come with more side effects than they are worth. This lack of research becomes clearer if one considers who is most affected by HS—women, BIPOC and plus-sized people, with Black women being the most represented demographic. HS’s obscurity also means that doctors often misdiagnose HS. “Do you wash yourself often enough?” “Maybe try losing a few pounds.” “Let’s get you tested for some STDs.” Again and again, this purely genetic disease is treated as a personal failing, a devil’s mark, the visible manifestation of some deeper moral or spiritual uncleanliness.

HS rarely attacks alone. Its many comorbidities include acne, psoriasis, eczema, scalp dermatitis and keratosis pilaris. The skin, despite its myriad topographical variations in texture and colour, is one continuous organ, and imperfections rarely limit themselves to one convenient, easily concealed location. Your entire body turns traitor: flaking, peeling, growing rough and discoloured. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, for you can probably imagine the psychological havoc caused by living with such a painful, stigmatised and, well, ugly condition.

This ugliness is what troubles me most about my HS. I am a young woman; I objectify myself and fetishise my suffering easier than I breathe. I best know my body as reflected in the eye of the beholder, as mapped out by his fingertips. So, the fact that my HS is impossible to aestheticize devastates me. My body does not waste away elegantly upon a chaise lounge like that of a sick-lit heroine. Instead, it leaks and bleeds and reeks. Those are all things the female body, which is less biological entity keeping human alive and more sweatless poreless fatless surface upon which desire and violence are enacted, must never do. HS reminds me, in horrifyingly pungent detail, that my body is no ornament but organic matter prone to rot and decay, and that is sometimes too much to bear.

I did much to manage my HS over the years. Not to relieve the pain, just to make my ruined, ravaged skin a little easier on the eyes. I trotted obediently to laser and dermabrasion appointments. Chug-chug-chugged 8 L of water a day. Stocked my bathroom with salicylic acid and vitamin C and azelaic acid and squalene and niacinamide and rosehip oil and whatever else was being marketed as the skincare industry’s panacea du jour. These helped, to varying degrees. But they did not give me the dewy, glass-like skin I craved, and sustaining them transformed my life from something I rather liked into an exercise in obsession and self-denial.

Even more devastating for me was the impact of smartphones and social media. To have a skin disease during this historical period, in which we are photographed constantly and with unforgiving clarity, and compare ourselves to the luminous butter-smooth faces of the prettiest people alive, and filter our photos until they enter the uncanny valley, is a unique kind of hell. The fact that the skincare boom of the 2010s arrived a few years after smartphones did is no coincidence. The technologies we have welded ourselves to inextricably are a fertile breeding ground for insecurity and dysmorphia, upon which the skincare industry thrives.

All this is to say, I have not learned to accept my HS. I speak of it rarely and with revulsion, and to describe it in detail, as I have forced myself to do here, turns my stomach. I wish I could set an example, be a Good Chronically Ill Person and declare that I have learned to love my skin, flaws and all, bringing this article to a satisfying, feel-good conclusion. But I can’t.

Truth is, every night in my dreams, I peel myself out of this scarred and speckled flesh suit. I flay long strips of skin, lay them down coiled neatly like lemon rinds. Then, I rise from the blood-slick, naked muscles gleaming, unblemished and beautiful.

Illustration by Amber Liang

Radio Fodder’s Declassified Gig Survival Guide

Written by Jaz Thiele

At last, Melbourne’s famous music scene has once again started the year at a run—and it doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. Huge headliners are back in our arenas, grassroots venues and big music halls are selling out their tickets, and local acts are back on stage, armed with a wealth of new music, after an extremely challenging few years.

What better way to support our musical favourites than by scoring tickets to their upcoming shows? That’s right: Radio Fodder’s Declassified Gig Survival Guide is back, providing you with a comprehensive list of all the acts you won’t want to miss throughout the next few weeks. From sell-out shows at The Forum to cosy acts in the suburbs, from rock and pop to avant-garde jazz, there’s something for everyone in Melbourne this month.

As always, make sure to come out and support our beloved small and local artists! Beneath all the fanfare, Melbourne is nothing if not the sum of its lesser-known gems, so give them some love.

Festival Feature: Groovin the Moo

29 April – Prince of Wales Showgrounds, Bendigo

The run of summer festivals is at an end—which is where Groovin the Moo comes in! Long established as the autumn festival, GTM is bringing a stacked lineup to Bendigo this year. Headliners include Alt-J (if you miss them at Margaret Court), BBNO$ and Fatboy Slim, as well as beloved Australian acts Ball Park Music, Ocean Alley, Skegss, and more. Final release tickets are a bit pricey, but you might be getting your money’s worth this year.

We only have space for so many gigs in this feature, but some other, unmentioned favourites are also performing at sideshows this year: Ball Park Music on 3 June at Northcote Theatre, BBNO$ on April 24 at The Forum, Denzel Curry on 28 April at Festival Hall, Eliza Rose on 3 May at Night Cat, and Slayyyter on 27 April at 170 Russell. We also wouldn’t be surprised if more sideshows are announced, so keep an eye out!

Peach PRC

28 April-1 May – Northcote Theatre

Fresh off her new EP, Manic Dream Pixie, Peach PRC has continually shown that she’s an artist to be taken seriously. Arcades, camcorders, head-to-toe pink: Peach brings early 2000s, Paris-Hilton-chic into the 2020s, and combines it with a clean discography of soft bubblegum pop, catchy lyrics and hyper-femme queer representation. We get the sense that Peach is only at the start of her musical journey; it’s only up from here.

Alt-J

3 May – Margaret Court Arena

After the postponement of their 2022 Australian leg, the time has finally come for these English indie-rock superstars to return to Melbourne. The Dream Tour will see Alt-J at their dreamy best, performing the experimental tracks off their latest album (hailed as their best since Mercury Prize winner An Awesome Wave). Iconic hits like ‘Breezeblocks’ and ‘Tessellate’ are sure to feature, but the best part of the show will likely be Alt-J’s roving display of diverse but cohesive musical styles, performed by their incredibly skilled band.

Teenage Dads

12 May – Box Hill Town Hall

The latest EP of these Victorian indie-rock favourites, Midnight Driving, dropped only a few weeks ago—and there’s no better way to enjoy their new music than by catching them live! Teenage Dads are eight years into the grind now, and they’re just as strong as ever. Expect strong basslines, layered tracks, clean guitar riffs, and fun additions like the cowbell from ‘Hey, Diego!’, as well as the band’s usual optimism and infectiously joyful energy.

The Necks

16-18

May – Brunswick Ballroom

The Necks are now four decades deep, and they’ve only improved with time. Described with all kinds of musical buzzwords (avant-garde ambient, experimental) and shoehorned into many genres (jazz, krautrock, pop-rock), The Necks are hard to fit into a single box. But if The Necks are anything, they’re immensely skilled, with an improvisational approach to performance that is sure to translate to an immersive and unique series of live acts.

Mallrat

20 May – The Forum

Almost one year after the release of her first full album Butterfly Blue, Mallrat is making her Forum debut in May, armed with a new band and plenty of fresh music. Catch iconic hits such as ‘Groceries’ and ‘Charlie’, as well as her latest single and first Chainsmokers collab, ‘Wish on an Eyelash Pt 2’. Australia’s national treasure, Mallrat has mastered the art of indie-pop, and is a must-see if you haven’t caught her live already.

Slowly Slowly

26 May – The Forum

Melbourne-based rockers Slowly Slowly have become fast favourites since their 2015 debut, with their highly praised latest album, Daisy Chain (2022), cementing their place as leaders in the contemporary Australian music scene. The fans who love Slowly Slowly love Slowly Slowly, and it won’t be hard to see why the second you catch them on stage. Expect an emotive, immersive experience as the band shows off their clean vocals, expert lyricism and hardcore instrumentals at The Forum.

Illustration by Weiting Chen

birdcrossing

Written by Stephen Zavitsanos

I get really scared when birds cross the road, thinking maybe one of these days they’ll forget to fly and then they’ll die and I’ll be standing there thinking I could’ve altered their fate, maybe changing the trajectory of their life and maybe even letting them flap for one more day, but that’ll just bring me to the road and I can’t fly (I can never fly) so maybe they’re protecting me from myself because I can’t stop feeling responsible for what people call a rat with wings and maybe it really is better them than me.

Illustration by Duy D

There is no night like tonight

Written by Katrina Bell

because last night, a boy's chlorine-coloured fingers waded through a girl's space (one) too many times and drew me looming to the pool's ceramic skirt, to map the sacred okay?

lips glossed in ancestral muscle memory twisting my fist into a wandering thumbs up tuned in for the tell-tale sound of prey struggling until disarmed, and following we smoked our discomfort into the philosophical wood of the smokers’ area picnic tables, trading the stories native to our preexisting condition, she says

he's a friend, but he just doesn't get it sometimes

but I do, and I don't really know her but I know Her and that is enough.

but tonight the sunset matches my eye shadow¹, and the men illuminating the pavement beside the pub

— the Ones on the corner — don't stare, they —

Stay a meander to my odyssey and I get to go home Incidentless to my flatmate with the pink hair and Chanel no.5 on her bathroom shelf. my pad doesn't leak and the aspirin works and the garish Victoria's Secret spray my friend gave me fights the slowing night air with all the petulance of a thirteen-year-old girl

¹ and I know it’s all for me because another ordained it so

Illustration by Zhuzhu Xie

'Joker's Dance' by Brian Schatteman

Photography by Brian Schatteman

Photography by Sasha Bolster

Content Warning: References to misogyny, blood and death

here are our angry women

Written by Mia Horsfall

come one, come all to see our angry women with beating hearts and fleshy wombs

ribbons for tourniquets and piss- stained skirts

here come our angry women where bone meets paper skin whose footsteps splinter concrete while wildflowers fill the cracks

here are our fallen angels who drink and snort amongst the coals their split skin screaming under soap suds as mascara turns bath water black

oh, see our mothers!

cresting the hill now with babies at their breasts and children

sheltering in the shadows of their hips

can you hear our savage girls scream? with broken hands and tired eyes voices crinkling like silk swollen guts and strong thighs

sir don’t cry!

you haven’t met our daughters all knobs and knees and knuckles

bright eyes and high voices

fists tensed with chipped nails

see how strong they stand crutches for our grandmothers’ stories woven into flesh

spines hunkered against the years and wrinkled chins raised high

please sir, let us be your muses and your myths let us twist and contort our bodies to your liking, for your use

come watch us storm the streets wiping away a salty slick of bile blood smearing our thighs hot and sticky and dripping

tell me again how our bodies are not ours to own more cadaver than person more wife than human

tell me again why when you carve your names into tissue, claiming them for your own your hands tremor and your eyes don’t meet mine

let the curtains open, this will be our final act!

come see our angry women and fear their teeth and claws

Illustration by Jocelyn Soetanto

êtRe-naissance

Written by Jessica Fanwong

gilded frames gold was the world they lived in when paintings were chiaroscuro and statues towering, finely carved features Godlike

a community of insatiable people, grappling hands always reaching upwards

but never quite touching that narrow gap between mortality and divinity that can never be crossed a world of distinct light and dark when knowledge was definite and learning still an endless uphill climb —what do they think of us now?

are we the utopia they strove so hard for?

half-finished brush strokes, burnt-out candle stubs, chiselled sculptures stone-cold who stayed up late on Friday nights believing themselves invincible who woke on Monday morning to the monotony of daily life

they have become dead words on a page, dried paint on a canvas, they live on while their corpses rot away in their graves

—yet still the living seek protection from the dead, and the dead from the living

Illustration by Weiting Chen

washing di she s

Written by Wildes Lawler

I wash the dishes and the sponges become grass—dirty little tufts from the field where my mother tried to commit suicide. Her back beat like a sheet of ice—the glass sky cracking to rain gasoline and grease. I drain the sink of slurry and fish out the scraps: fence pickets that will never be white again, blunt debris that sharpens only at my touch.

Now during the bloody hours, I boil a bath to sterilise myself. My limbs become beety and my cock tries to breathe—

I castrate myself because it hurts the most, because men should suffer. It soaks until I’m left in wine. “This merlot

smells like rust,” they say, as they come to take me away to freeze with the other meat—at the delicatessen.

It is my turn to wash the dishes, again, for the hundredth time. But there is nothing. I hold my breath. I hold it and forget my entire world. There is only starkness—the feeling of sliding into the drainpipes. My mother pulls me up and cries. I laugh—all this is only vaudeville.

Oranges

Written by Nimrada Silva

You can’t die at 25, because how will I ever eat an orange again?

Sitting next to you, in that lecture hall hairs on our arms brushing (jackets taken off, never mind the cold) and you were rambling on about something or other (about your eyes blanking when you run) I know why you run (better that, than pub fights on Thursday nights)

I can’t remember what they said, the lecturers at the front (something about transcription probably), but what use did we have for lonely meagre cells?

I didn’t care if bacteria used one enzyme or five to speed up their metabolic processes Or that lactase broke down lactose and that people who didn’t have it couldn’t eat cheese

If they could explain the way my stomach churned, like a washing machine on high power when he talked too close in that orange cursed breath

If they had a theory, a chart of some sort, to diagnose those catching feelings, like the common flu —

unnoticed at first; lying there, dormant inside your chest and one day, out of the blue, temperature rises to forty and you know, you’re in for a treat a two week antibiotic feast

If they knew, I’d have looked up and listened (when should you open your mouth, your legs?) Three weeks (too desperate), three months (and oh, that moment has passed)

That Friday morning, I didn’t listen to a word anyone said, because I knew (you knew) — it didn’t matter

All that mattered was the April morning sun — fresh and cold and pure, I wanted to bite into it

My whole life, it seemed, had been for that moment — that singular smile, that dimple on your cheek

As I leaned across (it was more than a kiss) noses touching, hearts rushing (knees blushing)

To smell the oranges on your sweet sticky mouth

Illustration by Arielle Vlahiotis

Content Warning: references to blood in no explicit

capsule

Written by Jessica Fanwong

a flash a glimmer a flicker as we try to capture all a capsule of time against the leak the drip the tick the trail that leaves no tracks but flows continuously slowly a never-ending unstoppable stream blood life along veins twisting in a Gordian knot unbreakable, tangled it’s that you’re fighting for towards against to break loose but simultaneously, to hold on—

central consumption

went to the central sushi train and it was 5 for the black plates 4 for the green 3 for the yellow and we pooled crumpled cash on the counter like desperate students, still hungry so we tried another brunch place just around the corner, eyes snagged on neon signs, plastic leaves on mahogany, instagram-advised backdrops, tongue-in-cheek sticker announcing, “perfect selfie spot!”

i ordered a chicken-avo-something sandwich with too-bitter iced coffee

and you had an egg and bread concoction sprinkled with twigs maybe something like herbs, probably healthy i guess menu with no dollar signs charges 30 for a parma “the cost of living crisis” we joke, shaking our heads like adults in blazers with a mortgage to boot

you had to get blue-lined notebooks for uni and off we drifted around on the second floor, a corner cacophony of self-esteem-crushing

21st century vanity propaganda, sephora and gucci huddled together like a front then back hand slap like a clique from a chick flick, bubblegum hot alongside a faux authentic pop-shop selling only size 4 baby tees crop tops small-waisted boyfriend jeans perfect boyfriend on the projected advertisement a slideshow of bronzed skin against bronzed skin against denim

at kmart: a stand off between the 80c simple 96 page notebook and the 2.50 flower-themed 95 page notebook you pick the floral one, you know we collect knick-knack stationary, obsessive over gel pens glue sticks wavy scissors double sided tape daiso stickers accidentally shoplifted write your name on the stationery pad like couples carving initials on trees (well, it won’t last as long)

Written by Ledya Khamou

a tobacconist every other street corner, smokesmart (but not that smart, we want business) right across small cafes with lip-ringed baristas charging 6.50 for frappés on old-school chalkboard with swirl swirl writing clearly appealing to some internet-bred aesthetic which annoyingly works anyway

i need to save for the dinner tomorrow night because i spent the 20 i didn’t have on a bouquet of flowers that died on the train ride home now observing a mourning period at an empty starbucks, on a crowded tram, calculating the price of the sugar clumps around my coffee cup i fall into the lap of a stranger at a sudden stop and feel the unyielding cotton of their coat lined with celebrity-brand perfume oh i’d rather smell BO on sticky, embarrassed skin rather feel life, rather imagine the neurons doing their job

pain blue sky tinted grey from fast food grease smoke clouds off-white, heaped with char and the sun an angry, bubbling blaze like timed macca’s fryers, screaming for attention behind glass barriers, forever unclean atop a marble counter marked with the ghost of impatience desperate fingerprints and sticky spot spilled soft drink all of it echoing with childish pleas, “gimme gimme now”

catatonic in a backpack and every bus stop drenched in the stink of street food nobody buys well i guess somebody buys it someone always does

Illustration by Amber Liang

Written by Jessica Fanwong

fragments, hyacinth, a one-eyed doll staring beadily back, asking for a smear of absinthe — where can we find among the broken shards?

too unsteady to stand upon those porcelain legs — too feeble, those frail green arms trembling half night-long, asleep the other, or at least half dormant

the periodic insomnia raging on.

does the wind break upon the surf in the distance or window panes?

slamming like a mad mob wishing to smash down the silent, inanimate house.

no trees can stop them — no, they come tearing down, branches snap, leaves stripped, trunks shorn, no shredded mercy for the earthly or the still.

but the insomniac is still standing pitch dark inside the bedroom begging desperate for a vial of tabula rasa strong dose among the worm-infested wood or a wreath of forget-me-nots

‘still fresh,’ she stressed, ‘recent blooms’ — as if that made a difference, or perhaps it’ll make the difference — between the nought and the cross the Red Sea or the Styx.

Is it really that big of a difference?

Candle flame, frosty icicles, shades of night

Burn

Burn

Freeze

Freeze

Illustration by Thao Duyen (Jennifer) Nguyen

Bleeding Marble: Eros

Dainty little butterfly cleaved cupid’s wings.

I was to bestow the demon beast the gift of you yet under faint glow I caught a glimpse Struck your beauty sublime arrow of mine upon my wavering heart. I blinded all of man their love in deep slumber as mine set ablaze raging sun in my chest prophecy foretold a matrimony—damned— my dear with a demon beast that is now of me.

Our first nightfall dim twinkles serenade I crawled into the bed we share where you lay awaiting my love wary touch upon my skin I returned a soft kiss and felt you delicately heavy breath from your lips I have not heard such melody it lingers in my ear stains my tongue soils my teeth stifling dolour purged at your gasp honey mellow purest it be.

I beseeched only you rest those sapphire beads in the light as I unbind your blinds trust all I am yours judge me tenderly.

Written by Rhylee L.

Lit lamp had witnessed my face unmasked glorious wings naked at sight you glamoured before a celestial breed drop of oil burns through my heart awaken the demon beast that was none you wished to see.

Such is this fallen god with wilted wings poisoned immortality for until I perish and hereafter will you still have my love—everlasting.

Illustration by Harriet Chard

Creative Column: both sides now

‘How They Love Us’

Written by Hannah Hartnett

I Baby likes to pull my hair our talks so good, it reads like a play but we can’t have children we know we can’t have children

the wind blowing in from Fairfield. I’m getting stoned on the couch, the one we keep outside so it’s dense with rain.

It wells up each year, the new heart I pull from the lake, in spring

it’s tender as an artichoke. Looking for the tools to weigh itself down. A wrench

a tire, it’s the iron that’s important. So, the rust of the iron is indistinguishable

from the rust of my blood. I’ve always wanted it out of me all at once. I’ve always wanted my head to snap back a bit too far.

The lake is wet as a mouth

I’m going for a swim.

II

Look, we’re imagining new Worlds incandescent in how they come in doubles, in brackets of gold.

World is real like a lion. Like a pond filled with golden fish. Real like parents

the kind that wake each day and come in pairs.

I am mostly asleep. I mostly forget the things that I have seen.

Glow worms snuffed out in paddocks, flies and silkworms unravelling at night. Chicken bones, and whores flush from work.

I’ve seen the river in heat, mosquitos rising from the mud. In waves, like zombies the crabs caught at dawn. There is a World out there.

World is real and full of doubles. There has to be two y’know, forty-two years is a long time to live paycheck to paycheck. A long time to wait to come alive. Like the cicada, I come out of myself to sing. III

In my dream the cat startles

so I take its tail, dash its brains out on a rock and still, you come by night.

You come by night and I cannot set you, as I would have liked. On a mantle or by air, by sea. Anything would have been better than by bats, by night. Your face a scream your hands, carving out my life in negatives.

It’s not the whites of your eyes but the black of your scream, in negatives

you’re less of a person and more of a scream.

In my dream, the cat dies. You leave at dawn, and the world is a dog put to sleep.

You like to garden, so often I look at you through sweaty orchids in the in-between.

I’m sure I loved you before your mother loved you. I taught her how one winter afternoon.

The winter she took your things And strew them across the lawn. I felt bad for you, your secret things strewn across the lawn.

V

We move toward the abattoirs, the cattle cry all night. I run out at dawn to my father, he says. The house looks like a meth lab, and us the meth heads in it. I ignore him, I can hear the cattle crying. The cattle cry all night.

VI I want to burn back to the root, it’s hard, to love but not touch.

I manage with wild cats, with tadpoles And the spruce. With starlight and the cicada who emerges every summer like a monarch from his tomb.

A woman’s a new country, the body a crucible wrecked with time. I don’t mind people I really don’t. I wonder where our projections go, without the fat to carry them through.

I measure distance with body, cast stones over troubled water. Saw the world through its apple, its endless riding towards death or the horizon.

I am in it up to my ankles, and I have no fear.

Illustration by Ashlea Banon

by Helena Pantsis

Egress

Written by Matt Chan

Like the beams, you are a creature of wood—a flat rectangular slab of faux-pine, brass handle jutting outwards towards the walls you stand parallel to. You bear no flourishes—no frosted glass windows, no elaborate joinery on display. You are what is referred to as a Budget Option—terminology from when you hung idly from a rack, dangling above the cold concrete flooring of a general hardware store. You were cheap and easy to install—a steal at seventy-five dollars. You were a very special door indeed, the salesperson had assured the pair that would purchase you. Hume—your manufacturer—very rarely let products like you sell at that price.

How is a door made?

Doors are deceptive. They present themselves as a singular, uniform being—in your case, masquerading as a sleek singular slab of Angora Pine—when in reality a given door is much more likely to be formed of any number of carefully prepared strips, steamed and glued and pressed together, forming the core of the door, to which strips of wood veneer are applied.

You present yourself as a cogent whole when in fact you are the composite product of a disparate array of logs, sourced from one place or another.

You are an instrument of mendacity.

Listen: nothing is of any consequence. Nothing has happened, and nothing will ever happen. You are achingly liminal in your very nature. You exist purely as a transfer point, a means of deliverance for souls infinitely more whole than you will ever be. Your menial existence is given meaning only by the most inconsequential of interactions—the transitory touch of a hand, the occasional and meagre glance of acknowledgement.

This is your life.

It swings idly on hinges.

What is there for you to do?

Nothing. You have succumbed to your own fate, are drowning in the tar of your own mediocrity. There is nothing to do now but to breathe it all in, to feel thick blackness slowly lining your insides. Perhaps if you consume enough you may find an end to this void, may touch that lock at the core of yourself that no carnal, clerical, cognitive sensation can satisfy.

Will this ever end?

Perhaps. Perhaps the Earth, too, will go hurtling off its axis and spin directly into the warm embrace of the Sun. Perhaps the carbon in the wind will dissipate, flowers shrivelling, birds falling from the sky. Perhaps the air will catch fire—oceans boiling, stones melting, forests burning. Perhaps, perhaps.

Why do you feel this way?

Listen: it is because you are a door.

A door is a barrier that is hinged, sliding, or rotating that is located in the framework of a cabinet or at the entry to a building or room.

A door is what you are—hinged, placed neatly at the entryway to a room within a building within a neighbourhood. The building is a house, a rough assemblage of some combination of brick and mortar, glass and granite, of sand and slathered tar. You know not of what it looks like, nor where it is situated. You know only of what is within your periphery: the ampleness of the room you lead into, the dry heat that blares in your direction through its singular window.

You know of the winding corridor that precedes you— twisting, contorting down and around a flight of stairs, deep glossy laminate wood flooring descending downwards towards a destination foreign to you.

(Sometimes, if you are left still enough for long enough, you can feel the building’s rhythmic pulsing—reverberating through the plaster walls, down its timber bones. You can feel the wooden beams throbbing, as though under the influence of some alien heartbeat.)

You are living a lie.

*

This is a family home. Three people live here—man, woman, child. They moved in three, maybe four years ago now. (You experience time not as a linear progression of hours, minutes, seconds—you feel no need for these arbitrary units, their endless division of the unknowable whole. But you can observe little things, watch as they change around you—the ever-changing hue of the light from outside, the ritualistic rising and falling of tinsel and trees and twinkling lights.

The one you are most familiar with is the child—she is slower, more deliberate than the rest. You recognise her footsteps down the corridor when she approaches you—can feel the touch of fledgling foot against floorboard in the wood, as if tapping lightly at the house’s timbered bones. There is a languid air about her, the vague sense of having nowhere to be, nothing to do.

One day she sits down and stares straight ahead, directly at you. You think that she is inspecting the grain of the veneer, perhaps. Or trying to spot the seam where the planks have been glued. But she continues to sit there, the dry sun shining through you and into her.

Listen: something happens, and it is this.

The child pauses for a moment, blinks.

“Hello, door,” she says.

You pause. And before you can think, this is what you do: You say hello back. * * *

What is her name?

You do not know.

How old is she?

She has told you, but you do not know. (Names, features, faces—all slide off you like droplets of rain down window panes. But you recognise people still—by the contours of their contact, the sonority of their speech.)

What have you spoken about?

She talks to you about herself. She likes the beach and horses and she wants to grow up to live on a farm and treat animals for the rest of her life. She is learning about timetables and technology and global temperatures rising. She tells you of the books that she is reading, the stories she is told.

She asks: what is it like to be a door?

You tell her about the function of a door—about their being hinged, sliding, or rotating barriers located within the frameworks of cabinets, at the entry to buildings or rooms. You tell her about the door’s function—its maintaining privacy when closed, its

*

establishing an aesthetic within a given room, given building, given neighbourhood. You speak of your clean and refreshing presence, the touch of class you lend to the home as a Hume door.

She seems disinterested. Water on windowpanes.

So you talk about the mechanical process that goes into the creation of their doors—about the factories loading logs into steaming basins to soften the wood fibre, about the stripping machines removing the bark, the lasers on the debarker used by operators to maximise the amount of wood veneer that can be extracted.

But she doesn’t understand.

So you talk about yourself. About how nothing has happened, how nothing will ever happen. About the lock—not on your handle, but the one laying within you. And then you realise: You can’t.

*

Here is the thing about wood: it is, at its core, built from the chemical carbon.

As a tree grows, it absorbs carbon from the air around it. Its roots sap up carbon from the soil below. The flesh of the tree is not muscle and sinew, but a fibrous mass that at its core is little more than composite carbon.

Carbon flows through the very air that flowers and birds and humans alike breathe. It festers deep underground, in the rocks and metals. Everything the sun’s searing ray touches—every grain of sand, every shred of plastic, every ounce of tar in the ground—carbon flows through it all. It is the building block of Creation itself. Here is the thing about you: you are a creature of wood.

The result of this is that all of Creation, every gust of wind and crashing wave, every hope and dream flows through you as well. You can feel the pulsing core of the Earth, all the metals percolating and bubbling beneath, and you can feel all that it sustains up above—every tree, every man, woman and child, every bird and flower and stone lodged within the ground, every atom of carbon floating aimlessly in the ether. You can feel it all.

But you are artificial. You are the composite product of five or six trees rendered bare—bark stripped and sculpted. You have been processed. Like corrupted circuitry, garish scars of gold and copper and wiring, you fizzle internally with a signal you cannot parse. Creation flows in through you and emerges a mangled, frazzled farce of itself. You are a filter that turns music into radio static.

You have something to say. Something that must be told. And you can’t help but to think, to feel somewhere in the recesses of your very being, that this is it. This is the key to that lock in your soul which binds you to this way of being. That pulls at that which reaches out from beneath and latches on to you—pulling ever deeper, inwards, downwards—into that ever-tightening, ever-feeding Void that lies within.

You hum internally with some truth, some signal. A message to transmit. A story to tell. And now you have someone to tell it to.

Listen: try to hear it. What is it?

Speak. Can you say it?

She is talking to you again. She is telling you a story she has read. Pinocchio. It’s a story about a little wooden puppet that gets up and moves around. There is no mention of what grain this little boy is constructed from, the process by which his little frame is constructed.

You tell her a story in return. Some part of yourself rumbles for it to be about you. About what it was like to be a tree once. About what it is like to be where you are now. Somewhere within you some part urges for the lock to be opened.

The story you tell is about Hume and their doors. It tells of their inspirational people, vision, courage, and commitment. It talks of their mission to innovate and make a difference within the home.

It is excruciatingly dull.

She nods along but says nothing. You can sense it settling in—the indifference. It leers out from you and claws at you, like scratches on the surface of your pristine veneer

You feel the sun’s heat, gleaming at your form through the panes of the room’s solitary window.

She does not speak to you today. The floorboards sit still, as if paralysed by the ever-simmering heat.

The sun is beating down on you through the open window. It feels hotter than before. Carbon dioxide is in the air. Temperatures are rising.

The house ticks away, its idle rhythm.

You have found yourself, for one reason or another, thinking a lot about tar recently.

What is tar?

Tar is the name given to a by-product of organic destruction—the toxic distillation of petroleum, peat, wood. It is decay. Rot. Tar is dynamic. It can be hard as rubber when cool and thin as oil when hot. It is in roads and homes and thick, dark bubbling black pools of its own self. It is everywhere.

Warm gold light blares at you through the room’s solitary window. It is almost as if the heat is searing through you, blasting outwards towards the corridor behind.

You feel something bubbling from within.

*

The calendar on the wall has changed.

Angora Pine isn’t even a real wood, you realise. It’s a marketing term Hume made up. You have no idea what you are constructed of.

*

Listen: something happens, and it is this.

You begin to speak.

To whom?

To no one. To anyone. To the birds in the sky, the stones in the ground, the flowers upon the soil, to the vast and far-reaching children of Creation itself.

To what you once were and to what you are now and what you can now never be.

You have a story to tell and none of the words to tell it with.

What is there for you to do?

You use the wrong words. You talk and tell and speak and scream of keys and cores and courage and commitment. You recite to the burning air stories of engineering expertise—visions, veneers, innovations; of machines and making a difference— steaming basins and stripping machines and surfaces, cream and white until you are trembling, until the pulsing of the house becomes thunderous booming, rattling the building to its very core; and until that lonely window and the warm sun shining through and the carbon delivering its heat are scorching you to your very core; that Void Within bubbling to the surface and spilling outwards, spilling rot and blight—thick dark liquid, seeping out through cracks in a carefully glued veneer—onto the laminate floor below.

Because you always were a steal at seventy-five dollars. You were a very special door indeed. You were always rotten to the core.

You continue to talk this way, as you seethe and bubble and boil in place. You speak even as you feel languid footsteps winding their way up a writhing wooden staircase, as if tapping lightly upon timber bone. You continue to speak even as you hear her yelp, as the sound of two pairs of feet treading follow her, as the gasps and murmurs of man, woman, child echo down the corridor.

You blast a signal out into the airwaves, a mangled farce of something true.

But listen: what else is there for you to do?

Illustration by Jocelyn Soetanto

Bus Ticket

‘Blink, and the years fall away like leaves’ (V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie

Ticket 17541, Trip 63, Route 95, Bus 15622

From: Pittenween To: Crail

YP21 Free SINGLE Fare 30/11/22 13:27

Collecting bus tickets and coffee receipts, as if somehow our lives that day—sunlight streaming through fingertips might be bottled up and shelved, stored somehow within cryptic timestamps of crumpled bus tickets

LaRue)

Written by Nimrada Silva

Would it have made a difference if you could not remember whether we had stepped on at 27 past one or 29—would it have altered the course of our lives if we had not let the old lady with the dog pass in front of us—did it matter? Does any of it?

Will they know? Your bottle blue beanie, your love of stripey red scarves your deep belly laugh, your I-know-you’re-thinking-something-dirty smile Will they be preserved? Between the lines of crinkled ticket times? Will they fade with the ink?

How strange numbers are; how much stranger humans are—giving life to squiggly lines Births and deaths and loves—collected in the clean strokes of clocks

Perhaps those monks carving St Filian's walls searched for eternity too—building time capsules in damp dark caves, wanting it to matter—like you, wanting passers-by who stumble into your room, to see; the bus tickets pinned up on your red notice board, and know that it mattered—that bus ride to Crail on the last day of November. And it did.

The mud; squelched under my boots; and my heart sank with it, knowing simply, silently: this would not last. And yet, when that brown Border Collie leapt onto our knees, tongue out, tail wagging. Furiously frantically frenetically;

my smile followed its motions—the same frenzy, that breathless rush, as you threw your head back and smiled into the sun.

And one day—years from now, our kids might take Route 95 to Crail on a cold November morning perhaps, and sprinkle us—together, you said, far out into that North Sea, braving the tides or simply hanging back idling around those Caiplie caves (at last).

Illustration by Nashitaat Islam

UMSU and the Media Office are located in the city of Melbourne, on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders—past, present and emerging—and acknowledge that the land we are on was stolen and sovereignty was never ceded.