PULP: ISSUE 08 2023

Cole ScottCurwood

The focus of my last few months as President has been expanding USU’s support for members and delivering on critical outcomes.

In addition to the $75,000 in funding USU is providing for FoodHub, we’re also planning $170,000 worth of new food initiatives for 2023 to support our members through the cost-ofliving crisis. This includes free meals from our food truck, $6 meals, and regular free breakfasts. USU is aiming to provide 10,000 free meals from our food truck, which most recently visited the University’s Camden campus.

Last year, the USU Board approved changes to our Investment Policy and appointed a new investment manager. Our mandate is to have investments that are more ethical, diversified, and fit for purpose. After considerable scrutiny, the Board has approved our investment manager’s Responsible Investment Plan to realise our vision. At writing, USU has $12.09m in investments, and as part of the planned transition, we will be divested from unethical sectors by June 30.

One of the ways USU is working to support student safety is by hosting student organisations from across Australia later this year to learn from each other and collaborate. USU is committed to this and budgeted for it at the end of last year. Given the criticality of this topic, I approached the University to fund this and am delighted that they’ve agreed.

We’re developing USU’s first Reconciliation Action Plan to frame our whole-of-organisation approach towards reconciliation. Through many conversations with members, staff, and community, we’re working to determine action owners, deadlines, and outcomes that are mapped to agreed approaches. This is no box-ticking exercise. We want to formalise our commitment to reconciliation informed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members, community, and experts. More to come on this.

USU’s membership is currently 119% higher than it was at this time last year. As we grow, it’s important that we be able to provide sufficient spaces for our members to socialise, eat, rehearse, perform, study, relax, and more. The University has expressed desire to invest in campus infrastructure, which is good provided there is no net decrease in student spaces, particularly during construction.

I’m grateful to the wonderful people I’ve worked with in this role. Their caring diligence is inspiring. My thanks to the PULP magazine editors for their work to revamp this publication and bring it to print. It’s been a pleasure to see PULP magazine come to life through their tender stewardship and the talent of dozens of contributors.

SENIOR EDITOR

Marlow Hurst EDITORS

Nandini Dhir

Harry Gay

Ariana Haghighi

Bonnie Huang

Patrick McKenzie

Rhea Thomas

DESIGN

Bonnie Huang

Rhea Thomas

DESIGN ASSIST

Alex Murray

COVER

Alicia Alonso

The views in this publication are not necessarily the views of USU. The information contained within this edition of PULP was correct at the time of printing.

This publication is brought to you by the University of Sydney Union.

Issue 08, 2023

PULP is published on the sovereign land of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, as well as Indigenous members of our creative community. We respect the knowledge and customs that traditional elders and Aboriginal people have passed down from generation to generation. We acknowledge the historical and continued violence and dispossession against First Nations peoples. Australia’s many institutions, including the University itself, are founded on this very same violence and dispossession. As editors, we will always stand in solidarity with First Nations efforts towards decolonisation and that solidarity will be reflected in the substance and practice of this magazine.

Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Marlow Hurst Senior Editor

In his final graduation address, Sir Hermann Black, the University of Sydney’s former Chancellor, spoke to the solitude of University achievement.

“Your degree is uniquely a personal achievement.”

He admits that, yes, staff are involved and one does receive advice and assistance from any number of sources, but the graduate alone “can turn all that input into graduating at the academic standards required of you.”

To the Faculty of Science’s class of 1989, he proclaimed that this was their “personal day, and will, in the passage of life, stand out uniquely as such.”

Sir Hermann could not, I imagine, say the same for PULP

PULP, like any and all student publications, is not a personal project, nor is it one conducted in solitude or isolation. The production and publication of this magazine has been the combined output of countless individuals. Ariana, Bonnie, Harry, Nandini, Patrick, and Rhea, the wonderful, intelligent, and effortless editors of PULP, have made it what you see today. Too numerous to name, our equally wonderful contributors have filled this magazine’s pages with novel and noteworthy reportage.

And, of course, behind the scenes, the USU has made this all possible.

Our diligent DSPs Alex and Madhullikaa and our heroic Honorary Secretary Isla keep us out of legal and reputational distress. And our dear President, Cole, keeps us well informed with his forewords.

Our lifesaving and breathtaking USU Head of Design, Robyn keeps the wheels from falling off.

Former PULP Coordinator Sarah moved mountains when she was with us and the new PULP Coordinator Alex will certainly move many mountains to come.

Finally, our Immediate Past President Prudence and Immediate Past Honorary Secretary Belinda shepherded through PULP’s print transmogrification just as physical went further out of fashion.

To harken back to my senior editorial in ISSUE 01, while the shortlived Sydney University Review was certainly no legacy publication, it still persisted for all of three years. One down, two more to go.

Enjoy ISSUE 08.

Editors’

Note

In the first paragraph of Julian Green’s Paris, he immediately assuages any doubt the reader may have had while opening up a book of travel writing with such a bland title as his. He describes how he has “often dreamed of writing a book about Paris that would be like one of those long, aimless strolls on which you find none of the things you are looking for but many that you were not looking for”, but immediately forewarns that he “shall be making no mention of the great monuments or any of the places you would expect to find duly described.”

Having stared at the various architectural marvels of his city, he could no longer find beauty in them, wishing to see “the Eiffel Tower at the bottom of the ocean, and I should be delighted, to learn that the two palaces, Great and Small, that disgrace the Cours-la-Reine had disappeared during the night.”

When we set about to forge PULP from the ground up, tasked with reviving the fledgling online publication for print, in some way or another, Green’s words were echoing about our minds.

Tired of the writing that plagues Sydneysiders, we hoped to move away from the typical sights and sounds that one may be tempted to write about. We came together with a shared vision, and similar dreams of seeing the Harbour Bridge, the quadrangle, the jacaranda trees, or any ‘ode to an Inner West share house’ at the bottom of the ocean.

We started meeting as a group a little over a year ago, toiling away in the basement computer labs of the Education Building. There we draw up our submission to be the PULP editorial team. We had a grand vision of what would be the magazine you hold in your hands today. Some we think were fulfilled — a space for photography on campus, greater collaboration between editors and writers, innovative design, interesting perspectival and cultural writing that goes beyond the walls of the University — others not so much — recipe cards, columns, stickers, foiling. But we had a dream, and for those looking back on this inaugural year and are hoping to apply to edit this dear mag, we say aim for the stars so you don’t kick up mud.

In the year since then, we’ve published a mountain of articles and featured a myriad of artistic works, hoping to provide readers a breadth of ideas and perspectives on their mindless strolls around campus, giving them things they may have been looking for, and others not. Doctors waiting rooms, Merivale venues, MSG, whale falls, beating hearts held in jars, monster fucking, looking at the moon, working at a mini golf course, Coke cans, piles of dirt, Vietnamese quarantine camps, cockroaches in Paddington basements, people watching, apostrophes on buildings, Dark MOFO, stamp collecting, ceiling fans, and experiencing dragonology-inspired ego death while tripping on acid — all these and more embody the vision of PULP: a strange, morbid, funny, wholesome, nostalgic, sometimes scary collection of deep dives into hyper specific topics and current fixations.

In our latest, and final edition you’ll have with this editorial team, we do one final lap around this weird and wonderful world. Libra Odd Spots, Bertie Beetle, Vladimir Nabakov’s butterflies, Lake Northam Bridge, Bosnian memes, the SCP Foundation, bidets, mouth ulcers, and a search for the name of our very own office — all of these things and more line the pages of this MEGA 96 page issue, and we hope to never see them disappear overnight or sunken to the sea floor (well, maybe the mouth ulcers).

So come take a stroll with us, one last time.

Contents

New Lake Northam bridge continues long legacy of pond pathway

Samuel Garrett Page 14

The wonderful everyday

Gus McHue Page 16

Finding a name for the PULP office

Patrick McKenzie Page 8

Where is USyd stored?

Marlow Hurst

Page 10

Have you seen my other Doc?

Gen Ripard Page 18

An investigation of poultry significance: The hospitality of 70-72 King Street

Ariana Haghighi Page 20

How Libra hits the (odd) spots

Nicola Brayan Page 22

The bum gun manifesto

Mihir Sardana Page 24

Saigon Surf: A genre lost and found

Anh Noel Page 26

The mythology of Soong Melling

Lizzy Kwok Page 28

I worked at the SPC Foundation

Edward Gay Page 32

Finding new moves

Angus McGregor Page 34

Tetris addiction

Mali Lung Page 36

On the origins of Bertie Beetle

Imogen Sabey Page 38

Food against itself

Lameah Nayeem

Page 40

Being from the funny zone

Leon Karagic Page 42

Kneaded more Claire de Carteret Page 46

The bun rises in the East

Jeffery Khoo Page 50

Palace/Mire/Form

Brodie Ford Page 54

Apricity in Anseong

Estelle Yoon Page 60

Des aimants qui voyagent dans le temps

Alicia Alonso Page 66

Piecing together the unsewn

Nandini Dhir Page 70

Landscaping

Zara Hussain Page 72

How many names are there for God

Ava Broinowski Page 74

Great Western Highway

John Brizuela Page 76

Nabokov and his butterflies

Alexandra Horner Page 78

My mouth is an open wound

Harry Gay Page 80

5 stylish looks for summer 1355

Mae Milne Page 82

Apra bails in dollarmites school banking program after Fortnite update-induced run

Margaret Pearson Page 84

Paper straws

Shania O’Brien Page 85

Fruits

Sonal Kamble Page 86

My Sims family has gained sentience and I fear they’re plotting against me

Harry Gay Page 88

Finding a name for the PULP office

Words by Patrick McKenzie

Names of buildings and rooms can mean many things. Whether prescriptive (Sydney School of Veterinary Science), descriptive (Eastern Avenue Auditorium), or commemorative (the Honi Soit office is named after late 2016 Editor Sam Langford), names give character, imply history, and best of all, bring life to the spaces to which they are assigned.

Notably, names can also be fraught and contentious. At USyd, the naming of the Wentworth Building, which sits at the corners of Butlin Avenue and Maze Crescent, has long been decried as an antiquated monument to a noted coloniser. Naming and renaming is as sentimental as it is political, and it is as important to question why things are named how they are, as it is to remember the names themselves.

Our own working space ‘The PULP Office’ as it’s colloquially referred to, holds a prescriptive name with little character or history. While we now call the first door on your left through the level 1 entryway of Manning House home, for the preceding seven years in which PULP — previously stylised as pulp — was an online-only publication, it had no office space at all.

As the inaugural team to edit PULP in its fully capitalised, semi-glossy, CMYK-colour printed form, we’ve had the honour and responsibility of beginning the history of our room’s new purposes. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t always The PULP Office.

“I was running the website from the tables at Courtyard,” a former Editor once told me.

You don’t need a midweek afternoon appointment at the Fisher

Library Rare Books & Special Collections room to tell you that Manning House has a history beyond mid-2022. Far before it was host to Sydney Comedy Festival shows and some of Sydney’s premiere hardcore gigs, Manning House was opened at 3:30pm on Monday, March 26 1917 by Lady Cullen, Patroness of the Sydney University Women’s Union and wife of then-Chancellor Sir William Cullen.

It was first a non-residential club to provide female students of the University with “a centre for their intellectual and social life,” William Good writes in Manning House, the women’s preserve. Even then, construction of the building in 1913 under a 4000-pound budget was the culmination of a decades-long campaign by women at the University for a quality space for “retiring”, study, and to conduct meetings and debates in. Only since 1885 had they even been allowed to be admitted to the University, following a special act of State Parliament.

What is now The PULP Office was first The Common Room in the original wing of Manning House. While Good notes that no photographs of Manning’s interior survive from 1917, photographs from 1962 show it in a “near-original” state. In the room 61 years ago, a long table and wooden chairs seem to function as a sort of study space. Today, it is occupied by two desks, two couches, and a fridge.

1962 was also the year that extensions to the building were completed, and “extensive rearrangements of the existing facilities” saw The Common Room renamed to The Graduates’ Room,

a title transferred from another area on the same floor with an adjoining shop. A further — and seemingly final — round of refurbishments were completed in 1985, and The Graduates’ Room became home to The ACCESS Centre, containing the administrative part of the USU responsible for funding Clubs and Societies and student publications.

It could be said that The PULP Office is named both The Graduates’ Room and The ACCESS Centre. A slightly worn brass plaque screwed onto the inside wall of the room reads:

“This room was named in gratitude of the interest shown in the Women’s Union by the Graduates”

Merely alluding to its former naming. Meanwhile, an occasionally taped-over fibreglass plaque to the right of the door still identifies us as the ‘ACCESS Centre’. Consequently, hardly a week goes by without a random assortment of students bursting through the door with a question about a room booking or a request for some sort of club-specific resource.

It’s hard to distinguish which element of history to most closely identify with. While not used for its original purpose since the separate Women’s Union was amalgamated into the USU in 1972, The PULP Office is at once a Common Room for editors and contributors alike, The ACCESS Centre for all those who Google it, and The Graduates’ Room, for everyone who passes through it — editors included — who ought to have graduated by now.

But I wouldn’t be opposed to a renaming either.

Where is USyd stored?

Words and photos by Marlow Hurst

The University of Sydney has a whole lot of stuff. Bits and bobs, trinkets and trifles, and, lest we forget, odds and ends. Since its founding in 1850, USyd has collected and hoarded and curated — assembling a veritable menagerie of gubbins. But stuff needs to be put somewhere — be that on a shelf, or in a room, or crammed in a desk drawer. This photographic series seeks to celebrate those sites of storage in all their categorised splendour. From the Macleay Collection’s old-world morbid magnificence, to the cutting edge of Chau Chak Wing Museum’s deep storage, all the way to the Madsen Building’s rock room basement — these storage facilities contain art, artefacts, and accurately articulated bird skeletons. With objects of indefinite age to items of to-the-minute provenance, the storage capacity of these appointed venues are the true engine rooms of our University’s cultural and scientific apparatus. So next time you’re studying some rocks in Madsen or taking in a new exhibit at Chau Chak, just be thankful that there’s somewhere to put the rest.

1. Macleay Collection

3. Madsen Building

New Lake Northam bridge continues long legacy of pond pathway

Words by Samuel Garrett

Lake Northam’s new pedestrian bridge has opened to little fanfare in Victoria Park. The 10-week Victoria Park Bridge Renewal Works by engineering firm MCM has given Lake Northam just its third bridge in a century and a half, once again securing pedestrian access across the calm waters between its western and eastern shores.

The rebuild of the bridge was needed due to the deteriorating structure of the previous bridge and weakening of its timber beams, which were reaching the end of their expected lifespan.

“There is clear intention of retaining the overall bridge aesthetics,” said MCM Community Liaison Officer Phillip Britten.

Much of the new bridge sees like-for-like replacements, along with strengthened piles and hand-painted wood “to enhance the look of the bridge and help in protection of the timber for a longer period,” according to MCM. However, in a first for Lake Northam spans, mesh has been installed as part of the new handrail, in compliance with new bridge safety rules.

Photographs of Lake Northam in the late 1800s reveal a sprawling body of water worthy of the now-overstated title ‘Lake’, despite then being known as the ‘University waterhole’ or ‘horse pond’. The original bridge dates to the establishment of architect Edmund Blacket’s University Avenue axis from City Road to the Quadrangle in the 1870s, which required the construction of a bridge over the remnants of Blackwattle Creek.

The original bridge over the future Lake Northam , c.1900. Source: University of Sydney Archives

The latest and greatest Lake Northam bridge under construction, March 2023

The bridge and its lush surrounds featured in postcards from 1900, and was still standing by the 1930s, when the then-’pond’ was drained to allow construction of stone walls around its edges to prevent erosion.

The draining of Lake Northam.

Source: City of Sydney Archives

Sadly, the bridge’s days over the new-and-improved lake were numbered. In 1955, the lake was again drained and greatly reduced in size. By June 1956, the bridge had been swept away along with the remnants of Blacket’s grand entrance to the University.

End of an era — the first Lake Northam bridge is demolished, June 1956. Source: City of Sydney Archives

Victoria Park would remain bridgeless for the next forty years, with the once-grand Lake Northam reduced to a piddling puddle. However, the bridge made a triumphant return in the 1990s when the then-South Sydney City Council decided to resurrect the Lake Northam of old, reestablishing Blacket’s avenue and a bridge over an expanded lake by 1998.

A bridgeless Puddle Northam, 1990s. Source: City of Sydney Archives

In recent years, adjustments and improvements to Lake Northam have continued. In January 2017, it was again dredged and refilled with more wetland flora and rubbish traps, though the long-term success of such measures has not gone without skepticism. With the decision of the City of Sydney to rebuild the bridge this year, Lake Northam is now graced with a new span that may lack the profile of its harbourside brethren, but is no shorter on charm and scenery.

The Lake Northam Bridge v2.0, 2003. Source: City of Sydney Archives

The wonderful everyday

Words by Gus McHue

A feverish burning had long been kindling inside her. Her clenched knuckles, white-red with anguish, were held firmly to her jeans. Looking around, the faces of passersby seemed smug, almost insolent, as they mindlessly wandered. Could they not see her? Or were they so caught up in their social apathy that they simply did not care?

She watched as a young boy, attached to his carer by way of a lime green harness emerging from his backpack, passed her. Holding a large pinwheel lollipop in his left hand, he ran his, undoubtedly sticky, other one along the shelves, displacing and muddling the displays. His carer, a heavyset, short man with blue hair and a sweated-through Silverchair t-shirt stared at his phone and seemed oblivious to the child’s actions as he was pulled through the building.

“Fuck you”, she mouthed to the boy as their glances met.

She thought of the man’s hands, which were probably just as sticky as the boy’s.

For what must have been hours, must have been days, she had walked endlessly in circles, starved of bathroom facilities and access to water. She could feel it on an atomic level, bubbling deep under her skin, like an intense static in her feet and hands. She wanted to yell. She wanted to scream and shout and fall to the floor and cry. Would they care? Would anyone care? Would the boy break free from his leash and join her in tantrum. She took two deep breaths, steadied her feet and, unclenching her fists, took down a flatpack from the large shelves. The box was dust covered and stale. A label, blue and yellow, read:

SKRUVBY

Bookcase and shelving unit

60 x 140

The photo was not the one she had seen online.

Fuck it, she thought, this will do.

Have you seen my other Doc?

Words by Gen Ripard

Dr. Martens. Docs. Blister boots. Platform. Loafer. Slip Resistant. Air wear. Mary Janes. Sinclairs. I have no doubt you know the shoe, but have you seen my shoe?

I have worn the very same pair of Dr. Martens since 2013. Back when Bangerz was charting, I was primary school captain, and the opening act for One Direction’s Take Me Home Tour was 5 Seconds of Summer. I thought I had it all. Well, all but a pair of Dr. Martens. I wanted nothing more than to appear cooler than I was. I was smart enough to know I could not fill the shoes of the popular girls, but wise enough to know I could still technically wear them. I walked into Bondi Junction’s Platypus Shoes with a certain smugness. I sat on the bench like a queen on her throne, trying on leather and laces like it was caviar and champagne. I settled on ‘1460s Smooth, by some miracle bypassing boots of florals and galactic. The cashier smirked as she accepted my mother’s Mastercard. Granted she had just sold three hundred dollar leather shoes to someone without their pen license, but rather she knew what she had aided. The beginning of a decade of self-expression, and many, many blisters.

Somewhere, somehow, and for some strange reason, my beloved boot was wife-swapped, sole-swapped, or otherwise stolen. Heavy emphasis on boot, singular, solo, or otherwise alone.

It was an average afternoon when I found myself bored in conversation staring at my soles. I thought to myself, how odd that my feet appear to be different sizes, ha, ha, wait, how can feet appear different sizes when wearing shoes, huh, no, surely not, ha, ha, oh. I began the early stages of investigation and unashamedly took off my shoes in public. An apology video is still seated in the editing room. Comparing length, laces, and leather — these were certainly the same style and most certainly drastically different sizes. I had no choice but to laugh. I thought nothing of the matter and began to tell

this tale as one of sheer uncertainty and absurdity. But, as always, curiosity creeps and crawls until it has its answer. We share that in common.

Where was my other walking? Who is its wearer? Have our imprints in suburban soil ever aligned? Was this the beginning of another Cinderella story? These questions manifest in my mind over all other matters. The exchanged must’ve occurred when my boots were off, and unattended. This was when real doubt jumped in. Was my Prince Charming a Skyzone Alexandria employee? Or worse, a member of Harbourside Strike staff? Both of these establishments have since been eradicated. Perhaps in the depths of a foam pit, or the nooks of a laser tag course was, displaced, my other doc. Alone, redundant, but at least similar to its owner.

I denounce sounding like a sneakerhead or someone who actively uses StockX. I would also hate for this article to appear as promotional content for Ben Afflecks Air. However. There is no denying the history a heel can hold, quite literally. The history of Dr. Marten is one self-titled as a “history of rebellious self-expression.” Following the aftermath of the Second World War, injured soldier Dr. Klaus Maertens sought supportive footwear to aid his injured foot. Utilizing the scant materials 1945 Munich could offer, Maerten crafted his own uniquely supportive air wear boot. Sparking the interest of old mate Dr. Herbet Funk, the pair of doctors joined forces to create, well, docs in pairs. Humble in appearance, and sold in abundance, Dr. Martens adorned the calloused feet of the British working class. Blue collars and yellow stitches went together like Marmite and dense bread. An invitation to anarchy was unintended, and Marmite quickly manifested docs into the shoe of the skinheads. Suddenly the shoe represented a history of rebellion and became an outward expression of community aversion to the norm. British youths transformed laces into unspoken acceptance and adopted the boots as better versions of themselves, and

their country. Docs deemed decades of mainstream madness, and celebrity endorsement and were staples in the alternative community. Until they ultimately plateaued in the early 2000s.

Though my time on 2013 stan Twitter often felt like a battlefield, I’m not sure it quite compares to post-war cobbling. These timelines of conflict are undoubtedly drastically different, but share a common theme: a pursuit of self-expression. The naughties Dr. Marten’s renaissance has witnessed the ebb and flow of trend cycles — from tumblr and tennis skirts to tote bags and turtlenecks. Myself and my mismatched boots have walked there, every step of its uncertain way. Heartbreak, several minimum wage jobs, concerts of all genres, international travel, and hopefully more than one graduation. Somewhere, somehow, and for some reason, someone took a piece of my history and I grabbed a piece of theirs. Our histories are similar enough to fit each other’s feet. The label of my docs has worn entirely, meaning I am honestly unsure as to which shoe was originally mine. I don’t know who has my shoe, nor do I understand whose show I have. It feels as though we are wearing a piece of each other. A piece of history, heartache, and hope. There’s something special about that. Something worth getting blisters for.

An investigation of poultry significance: the hospitality of 70-72 King Street

Words and photos by Ariana Haghighi

The media has oft-warned people my age that we will never own property in our lifetime.

Fortunately for me, a home with my name emblazoned on it was thrust onto me one fine day. And with no deposit, or even knowledge that I purchased such a house — real estate agents hate her.

I was buzzing down the King Street beehive, heading in the direction of Eastern Avenue, when my eyes scanned over a familiar bouquet of letters. Ariana’s Place? I am Ariana. Is this my place? Was I a soldier late to report for duty? I marched closer to the window.

A seal-grey silhouette stared back at me, the light struggling in its task of reflection due to the windows’ newspaper lining. The time-stained papers covered up the majority of the glass panes. Mystery tugged me closer and my nose tip kissed the pane as I tried to look between the gaps of any newspaper pages that had unstuck. To my delight, I spied smashed-mirror segments of translucence. Verdict? None — no amount of squinting could record data more insightful than “a stack of flat boxes” and “empty space”.

All alone in my quest and ready to leave my post, I was suddenly joined by a phalanx of phantoms. “Hello Ariana”, they whispered. My stomach looped into pretzels. What did the ghouls of King Street want from me?

One spirit strode towards me and proclaimed, “I am the ghost of 70-72 King Street past.” Before I let out an Scrooge-scream, tales rolled off his tongue…

In front of the boarded-up borderland, the past poltergeist recounted the story of the institution that once inhabited these walls: Urbanbites.

70-72 King Street past

Urbanbites was a Newtown staple that served breakfast burgers and hangover-cure meals to uni students and inner-west locals alike. I spoke to a long-time Newtown denizen, who wishes to remain anonymous. They fondly recalled Urbanbites and its position as a “recovery brunches” bastion.

One day in 2020, Urbanbites showed its customers and employees the door, which took many King Street-ites by surprise. Its end was

chalked up to lockdown-related financial strife. However, my Newtown confidente shared a rumoured story about the Urbanbites closure. Allegedly, Urbanbites management changed hands around five years ago, and began hiring backpackers and international students in droves. Then, word got around that Urbanbites was a site of rampant wage theft. Newtown dwellers did not stand for this, and banded together to boycott Urbanbites. Brought to its knees it was; a reminder that large meals do not guarantee the largesse of management!

The hearsay-loving ghost was finished, and the ghost of 70-72 King Street present took to the stage. Granted, he did not have much to add; he existed purely for consistency with this writing trope’s tripartite structure.

70-72 King Street present

The space of the present is one of interregnum, free from the shackles of restaurants past and not yet fully under the hold of another. Repeatedly emblazoned on white banners is the triplet, “JOBS JOBS JOBS”. There are comic sans-covered posters that are crystal balls, foretelling the future of the space in vague terms. But this writing on the wall is far from a harbinger of

doom: its excited tone would energise the most lethargic. To see is to believe — to imbibe the something-big-iscoming atmosphere, I suggest you take a trip yourself!

Finally, the hotly-anticipated ghost of 70-72 King Street future arrived, decked in ethnically-ambiguous cultural garb, accompanied by whiffs of… roast chicken?

70-72 King Street future

Rotisserie rêveurs, broiler believers, and poultry partisans rejoice! I spoke to Michael Vale, the hospitality consultant in charge of dreaming up the “unique boutique chicken operation” that will soon fly over to 70-72 King Street. Sceptical Newtown denizens, do not cluck over the concept just yet.

Vale foresees a restaurant where “five chickens are served under one roof, each with a special stuffing.” Moroccan chicken. Mexican chicken. Thai chicken. Spanish chicken. Greek Island chicken. These plucky permanent five members of the Chicken Security Council will be cooked in an Italian-made steam oven, just to add another culture to the melting pot. “It’s going to be unusual,” Vale promises. The chicken-focused

restaurant will occupy one half of this fated space. The other half will be a café reminiscent of Urbanbites, buzzing in the mornings and serving breakfast food to droopy university disciples.

The cultural chicken rotation is not Vale’s most peculiar proposition. Vale describes a number of “digital concepts” to complement the capon. Expect an “electronic musical tribute” where tribute to a famous artist bearing the same culture as the chicken cuisine will be played. Vale provides an example of playing Bob Marley’s London performance and serving Jamaican chicken, and promises that he is cooking up more ideas.

Ariana’s Place will see a deliciously big launch in the coming four to five weeks, where Vale plans to invite local Newtown shopkeepers and throw a fully-licensed boozy chicken party.

I thanked the three ghosts for their information and promised to cite them in my factual recount of this fateful day. Grateful I was to be offered such insights into a divine King Street presence and its evolution from monkey to man (or should I say, café to chicken restaurant).

How Libra hits the (odd) spot

Words

by Nicola Brayan

Menstruating is an almost entirely terrible experience. Everything — everything — hurts, there’s so much blood, your body looks, and feels, and does things weirdly. Hangovers and illnesses get worse, and on top of all that, your emotions are thrown out of whack. Most people I know who menstruate wish they didn’t. Amongst this agony, though, is a phenomenon that those who do not menstruate may never get the chance to experience: Libra Odd Spots.

These little facts, printed in blue type on shiny liner backs, wing tabs, or pad wrappers, stare up at you as you sit on the toilet, blood clots dripping into the water below.

Odd Spot #71: The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by the Ancient Egyptians in 2000 BC.

After a brief moment of amusement, these trivia-stamped wrappers are crumpled up and stowed in the sanitary bins having served their fleeting purpose. You go about your day, probably in pain and miserable. But at least you know more about crocodile-shit-contraceptives now.

Odd Spots strike a peculiar balance of whimsy, recognisability, and camaraderie. Above all, they’re conceptually bizarre: who decided that, in some of the worst moments of your week, you would want to learn trivia?

In my quest to learn more, I reached out to Libra through several avenues. Most got no response. The only correspondence was from a representative called Jacki, who redirected me to simply Google “Libra Odd Spots”. Weirdly, there is very little content from Libra that addresses them.

An article by New Zealand publisher The Spinoff fact-checks some of these Odd Spots and cites Libra marketing manager Laura Demarchi, claiming that there are over 300 Odd Spots in circulation. There are

several fan-run blogs and web pages which chronicle lists of Odd Spots — the oldest I found was a BlogSpot page from 2005. I found another New Zealand article from 2021, in Critic Te Ārohi, whose author had also communicated with a representative named Jacki after they were worried Libra had stopped printing Odd Spots (they had not).

Like that author, I had begun to worry that Libra had stopped making Odd Spots. I bought pads specifically for this article, and there weren’t any Odd Spots on them. However, in a YouTube video posted by Libra in August 2022, ambassador Abbie Chatfield reads out a selection of the “most iconic” facts. In this video, Chatfield suggests the Odd Spots have been around for over twenty years, but doesn’t say anything about them having stopped. This baffled me further. Why is Libra so evasive about an ostensibly well-loved facet of their brand? I’ve never seen a brand so determined to downplay a gimmick that its customers actively enjoy.

The facts themselves are also somewhat mysterious. Some of them sound really implausible. From the various blogs documenting the Odd Spots, I collected a few to fact-check.

#132: Boanthropy is a disease in which a person thinks they’re an ox.

True, weirdly enough.

#65: You are more likely to get attacked by a cow than a shark.

It is true that cows kill more people each year than sharks do, however, data on non-fatal cow attacks is difficult to find, so I can’t guarantee this fact is true.

#23: In the course of an average lifetime, you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.

Thankfully, this is not true, it’s an urban legend.

For those curious about the crocodile dung contraceptives: it’s true that in Ancient Egypt some types of animal faeces were used as a spermicide. However, they aren’t the first recorded contraceptives — condoms have been used since 3000 BC, with the earliest ones being made of animal intestines.

It’s possible that these have been updated since they were posted to the sites I found. Regardless, it seems that Odd Spots fluctuate in their accuracy.

The question remains, then: what’s the point of Odd Spots? If they are intended as a marketing gimmick, they are bafflingly under-advertised. The people I spoke to who like Odd Spots often consider them a fun little surprise when they open up a pad, as opposed to something they actively seek out. Surely, there’s a point beyond marketing.

In the article from The Spinoff, they quote Laura Demarchi as saying that Odd Spots are “a bit of lighthearted entertainment during an otherwise pretty mundane period of the month.” Perhaps Odd Spots are just intended to be a little bit of wholesome fun to make periods easier. Learning is enjoyable, and the facts are whimsical. There is camaraderie in returning from the bathroom with a fun fact to share.

Jacki’s instruction to Google “Odd Spots” initially struck me as pointless, as it did not turn up much official Libra content about them at all. Perhaps, though, the fact that a majority of the results are fan-compiled tributes tells me more about Odd Spots than I initially thought. As far back as 2005, people were excitedly compiling lists to share with each other. There is a longstanding community built around these fun facts. Maybe that’s the point.

The bum gun manifesto

The undeniable truth is that water is the superior method of cleaning one’s backside. Whether you call it the shattaf hose, the lota, the jet spray, the washlet, the commode shower, or the bidet — all these washing apparatuses top a roll of toilet paper.

To me, cleaning up solely with toilet paper is like wiping my used dishes with a napkin and putting them back in the cabinet. It may look clean, but no reasonable person should consider it as such.

And I’m not alone! Throughout the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, and South Asia, Hindu and Muslim teachings — pertaining to an individual’s pollution and purity — have vouched for washing with water for centuries. Hindu religious laws affirm that only water can adequately cleanse one’s shitter. Whereas, the Quran vouches for the condition of the body affecting the condition of the spirit, hence the necessity of a thorough hosing down after a dump.

Truly, washing up is not just a choice, but exemplifies a broader lifestyle. As writer Javaria Akbar so succinctly points out, “water-free wiping leaves me and other Muslims feeling genuinely unsettled and uncomfortable. It’s not just an annoying preference we’ve learned — it’s an inherent belief and part of our faith.”

I do believe that this sentiment does unite people across borders, history and time, because there is an Occidental lota — the bidet. Thought to have been invented by Christophe des Roisers, it was named after the French word for ‘cob’, a type of pony, as users would have to straddle the bowl like it was a little horse. However, it only gained popularity after it was introduced to Italy by the Queen of Napoli, Maria Caroline d’Asburgo-Lorena, who installed one in every bathroom of the Royal Palace of Caserta.

Words and collages by Mihir Sardana

Unfortunately, this appliance never graced the bottoms of the Anglosphere. Englishmen in the 18th and 19th centuries first encountered the bidet within the transgressive settings of Parisian brothels. The bidet was deemed salacious and tawdry due to its association with the “libertine” lives of prostitutes and birth control. While the fixture may have shed its association with frivolity and immorality, it is still inextricably linked to femininity, which

continues to scare Western men. If only we stigmatised skid marks!

The widespread implementation of the bidet also has benefits for accessibility and public health. Not everyone has the dexterity to wipe themselves, and by normalising these attachments in Australian bathrooms, it simplifies the cleaning process, affords them independence, and the momentary power of Poseidon. While scholars remain divided on whether bidets can prevent UTIs, other studies have found that they can help with problems like anal fissures, haemorrhoids, constipation, or pruritus ani (the inexplicable itch near your rectal opening that just doesn’t seem to go away).

Not to shit on toilet paper, but I would be remiss not to mention its grave environmental impact. According to QS Supplies (a British Bathroom Supplies company), the average Australian uses 88 rolls per person, per year. In 2021 alone, Australians used 205,190,427 kilometres of toilet paper. That’s enough to go from Earth to the Sun and still have some left to spare! The steep ecological price of this is 31,114,249 trees felled for global toilet paper use yearly. If we were to compare this directly to the environmental footprint of washing, Scientific American states that 140 litres of water goes into making just one toilet paper roll, while using a bidet after defecating takes only up to 500 millilitres of water.

At the end of the day, I could sit here and write about the benefits of the bidet for pages. I could tirelessly cite endless studies about their benefits. I could ceaselessly reference quantitative data and recite statistics. I could even make analogy after analogy about how wiping your ass after shitting is like brushing your teeth without toothpaste. But, ultimately, it is only you that can make yourself feel the pure refreshment of a freshly washed ass after a long, relieving dump. I can sing of being kissed by the sweet glorious clarity of water, instead of the rough coarse sandpaper that is a Quilton roll — but it is up to you, dear reader, to experience it yourself.

It’s like we say back home, bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad! (what does a monkey know of the taste of ginger!). I implore you, fellow monkeys, do not deprive yourself of this taste.

Images courtesy of Raja Ravi Varma

Saigon Surf: A genre lost and found

Words by Anh Noel

Vietnamese music laments, it does not howl. I first discovered Phương Tâm’s body of work through the Spotify algorithm. Raucous and dry as much as it’s cheerful. Her voice roared through statics and crackles of the old remastered work.

‘Nhịp Đàn Vui (A Merry Tune)’ begins with a gleeful chorus countdown. Then, thunders down something unlike any voice I’d heard before:

Ca lên cho vui

Sing to be happy

Celebrate freedom that’s arrived

Viet singers of the 60s (and even now) exhibit a clear and sweet singing style. Tâm is different. At just 19, her voice was as raspy as a 50-year-old smoker’s. Instead of being refined, she wasn’t afraid to scream.

But more than this, it is the difference in the music that mystifies me. This song is incomparable to other 1960s Saigon genres, such as boleró or traditional music. Rather, it is an infusion of American surf rock, jazz and blues, glossed over in Vietnamese lyrics. It is dirty, emotive, and unapologetically cheerful.

Later on, I found out that this is called ‘nhạc kích động’ or ‘action music’, a belting genre with American rock ‘n’ roll influences.

“Back then, it was only me who was singing that genre of music”, Tâm told me through a glitchy WhatsApp call, sitting next to her daughter in San José. “And the sad thing is, for over 50 years, everything was lost”.

Magical Nights — Saigon Surf,

Twist & Soul (1964-1966) is Phương

Tâm’s first-ever retrospective album. Its 2021 release can thank the dedicated efforts of Tâm’s daughter Hannah Hà and music producer Mark Gergis. They restored the lost recordings of Tâm’s work, essentially bringing back a missing puzzle in Vietnamese music history.

The early 1960s saw American music influencing Vietnamese tastes. Previously enamoured by folk opera, French jazz and boleró, the younger generation became more fascinated by cultural artefacts brought over by American G.I.s. In Saigon, radio waves and nightclubs took over with the likes of The Ventures to The Rolling Stones. It was the birth of a vibrant Vietnamese rock scene in which Tâm was the centrepiece.

She always wore an áo dài when performing, the national dress often associated with Vietnamese schoolgirl femininity. When I asked why, she laughed, “I love wearing áo dài. When I’m out and about I would wear Western dresses, but when performing, always áo dài. Nguyễn Ánh 9, a fellow artist, once told me “You sing rock n’ roll, you should wear shift dresses and mini shorts”. But I liked áo dài!”

Vietnamese writer Mai Thảo wrote about the áo dài’s presence in 1962: “As she steps from the back and moves toward the microphone with glittering eyes her hands clapping to the beat — a new shape emerges. The figure is now drawn with burning flames, like a green fruit ripening before your eyes.”

Nhạc kích động was then borne from the South Vietnamese government’s prohibitions on the distribution of Western music. “You could perform songs in English, but you couldn’t record them. This ultimately led composers to record rock’n’roll in Vietnamese. Cause then, it was no longer purely ‘American’ music”.

It was these recordings that then became Magical Nights. Tâm was the only singer doing it, and what emerged was a new genre.

With the fall of Saigon in 1975, Tâm’s family evacuated on a cargo plane and arrived in California. Her focus turned to rebuilding a new life: “I had no photos, no recordings. Nothing was kept.”

“When you leave in time of war and you’ve left parts of yourself behind, there’s no other option but to look to the future”, said Hannah, “she never looked back, and much of her music career was forgotten”.

Hannah first discovered that her mother was a musician in 2019. What followed was a driven desire to restore, verify, and distribute the work. She sought out music producer Mark Gergis, who had produced the compilation album Saigon Rock & Soul in 2010. Funnily enough, it was the same album that wrongly attributed a rendition of a song sung by Connie Kim to Phương Tâm, who sang the original track.

“It was a difficult and long process that took a lot of investigation and talking to people”, Hannah described, “we did not know how many songs were recorded and where to even find it. I mean, where do you even find Vietnamese records? You can’t just go to a library.”

“I had to verify whether mom’s records were original recordings. I had to go all over the world to ask collectors and music historians. People who have done 20 years of research”.

“And you know what’s so interesting? They didn’t even know that she was alive. They were like “She’s alive? Living in Central Bay?”. They didn’t even know what she looked like”, she laughed. “It was a history lost to even its own artists.”

Over two years, they sought out collaborators from all over the world. From “Germany, Australia, England, Vietnam”. Hannah described this as a process of “extracting history” through exchanges that would slowly piece together the truth.

As we approached the end of the call, it came to me how we were three generations of Vietnamese people, all in the process of rediscovering our own roots.

The composer Y Vũ, who wrote ‘Đêm Hyuền Diệu (Magical Nights)’ upon listening to Tâm’s original recording of the song exclaimed “I’d found love again”. And Tâm had cried when she first listened to the record.

From tearooms to Spotify, Magical Nights have opened up new possibilities of how we view and reflect upon predominant narratives about Vietnam. It’s reminded us that nothing is ever truly final, and much like music, is forever-changing again and again.

Có nhớ đêm nào?

Nhìn chung ánh trăng mơ màng

Hạnh phúc tìm đến đây rồi Ðời là một bài thơ

Remember that night?

We stared together at the dreamy moonlight Happiness has found us

Life is a poem

Images courtesy of The Guardian, Bandcamp, and The California Report Magazine.

The mythology of Soong Meiling

Words by Lizzy Kwok

Courtesy of The Guardian (1959-2003) archives, The China Weekly Review (1923-1950) archives, and The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette (18701941) archives, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

As a child, I often felt ‘too white’ for the “real” Chinese kids and ‘too Asian’ for the white kids. I felt uneasy, afraid of disappointing my parents for not being Chinese enough (don’t tell them I preferred Kim Possible over Dragon King). All of these insecurities would dissipate at the dinner table, when my grandparents shared stories of Chinese historical figures: tales of heroic deeds (Yue Fei) and nefarious acts (Wang Jingwei), of ancient legends (Yu the Great) and modern-day radicals (Lu Xun). But I always felt bizarrely allured by one story in particular — that of 宋美龄 (Soong Meiling) — the second First Lady of China.

I remember hearing stories about Meiling long before I knew who her husband Chiang Kai-shek was, before I even understood the concept of Republican China. In my mind, she was an intelligent, US-educated, young woman whose ambition and drive propelled her to become one of modern China’s most influential figures. Born into a powerful web of political intrigue: her father was rumoured to be involved with Shanghai’s burgeoning criminal underworld, her eldest sister married a wealthy industrialist who later financed the Kuomintang (KMT, the party to which Chiang Kai-shek belonged), and her middle sister married Sun Yat-sen, the first leader of the KMT and ‘father’ of modern China.

Despite her importance in Chinese history, there is a lack of authoritative writing on Meiling, except for Emily Hahn’s Soong Sisters (1941) or Jung Chang’s Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister (2019). So inevitably, I delved into the murky oeuvre of internet writing on Meiling’s legacy:

Madame Chiang Kai-shek singlehandedly “charmed” the US into supporting Republican China in the Civil War. She dreamt of global domination and rule, even if it meant seducing a potential American president at the behest of her husband.

Foreign journalists, largely American and British, have traditionally depicted Meiling as a hyper-sexualised, power-hungry Dragon Lady. (Maybe her Philosophy professors at Wellesley taught her the art of political seduction.) Oftentimes, they exclusively wrote about her encapsulating beauty and figure-hugging qipaos rather than her numerous other accomplishments, as if following a standardised template titled ‘Sexy Oriental Wife’.

For a woman described as one of the architects of modern China, Meiling’s legacy is shrouded in mystery. Maybe the best way to learn about her then, is to feed into the gossip…

妈妈，你对宋美龄的印象是什么？ Mum, what do you think of Soong Meiling?

Growing up in 1970s China, my mother was taught a similarly simplistic narrative: Meiling loved power. As Mao’s infamous saying goes: “One loved money, one loved power, one loved her country.” Leading a life of luxury and opulence, it was said that Meiling even bathed in fresh milk, as beauty remained a paramount concern well into old age.

Like many foreign journalists at the time, my mother quickly realised that her younger self underestimated Meiling’s political prowess. She told me about how during the Xi’an Incident, Meiling personally engaged in negotiations with Zhang Xueliang, securing the release of Chiang Kai-shek after he was kidnapped in 1936. Meiling also travelled around the US, working tirelessly to promote China’s war efforts against the Japanese.

After a long conversation, my mother said: “宋美龄的人意很好” (Meiling was a good person). She used the word ‘人意’, for there is no adequate English translation. 人意 is a rather ambiguous term, but largely refers to one’s morals, values, and capacity to empathise with others.

Courtesy of Getty Images

婆婆，你对宋美龄的印象是什么？ Grandma, what do you think of Soong Meiling?

“宋美龄很能干!” My grandmother proclaimed immediately: Meiling was very capable. And indeed she was. Having graduated from the prestigious Wellesley College, Meiling’s higher education was a rare feat for women of her time. Fluent in English and at least four other languages, she was the perfect interpreter, capable of navigating the perilous waters of wartime diplomacy.

In many ways, Meiling was the ‘political mastermind’ behind Chiang Kai-shek, the ‘Jackie Kennedy’ of modern China if you will. But like many Chinese grandmothers, mine believed that Meiling’s successes in diplomacy were attributed to her beauty. Even over WeChat, my grandfather’s fervent dissent was palpable, his strong expressions of the contrary lingering in the background for the remainder of our call.

Soong Meiling attending the 1943 Cairo Conference as her husband’s interpreter. Pictured from left to right is: Chiang Kai-shek, US President Franklin

D. Roosevelt, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soong Meiling. Courtesy of Hoover Institution Archives.

Soong Meiling was undoubtedly a product of incredible privilege, having been given countless opportunities reserved only for Shanghai’s elite socialites. This is perhaps one of the few statements I can unequivocally claim about Meiling. But was she a power-hungry woman who intended to manipulate Wendell Wilkie? I suspect if journalists of the 1940s paid closer attention to the content of her speech rather than the length of her dress, they would’ve been closer to uncovering this question.

Amidst the uncertainty, I yearn for more factual histories to be published on Meiling. It is difficult to imagine 20th-century China without her, but documentation which acknowledges her significance in history is scarce. In the meantime, all we can do is attempt to fill the gaps. Let’s gossip, spread some rumours, and theorise imaginatively: 宋美龄到底是谁？ Who was Soong Meiling?

Soong Meiling attending the 1943 Cairo Conference as her husband’s interpreter. Pictured from left to right is: Chiang Kai-shek, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soong Meiling. Courtesy of Hoover Institution Archives.

Caricature of the “modern girl”, as represented by Soong Meiling, helping to rid Shanghai of “terrorists” and “villains.“ Published in 中国漫画 (Zhongguo manhua), May 1943. Courtesy of the Shanghai Library.

Untitled caricature of Chiang Kaishek and Madame Chiang Kai-shek on the front page of 民众日报 (Minzhong ribao), March 9, 1940. Courtesy of the National Institute for Defense Studies, Tokyo.

I worked at the SCP Foundation

Words by Edward Gay

[[ ACCESS GRANTED – MEMETIC KILL AGENT DISENGAGED ]]

In 2012, following a sweat drenched session of the latest Slender clone, I typed “scary games” into YouTube and clicked on an innocuous let’s play video. What I encountered was bone-chilling: SCP-087-B — a firstperson horror game based on an online creepypasta. Its design was simple, a player slowly descends a staircase with eerie music fading in and spooky faces popping out. I didn’t realise I was on the precipice of an entire universe.

The original SCP-087 was like nothing I have ever read, and had a cold layer of authenticity only afforded to police interrogation footage. What separated it from other creepypastas was its unique structure: a classified research document with an Object Class (indicating Ww of containment), Special Containment Procedures (methodology of imprisonment), a Description (details of anomalous properties), and Exploration Logs. Its warnings of top secret material made me feel as if I had stumbled upon something I shouldn’t have — that men in black would come to my door for even glancing at the page. I had no idea it was just one small nook in a mountain of other stories, all written by other authors but all sharing the same universe.

The SCP Foundation is perhaps the largest and longest running community writing project of all time. Thousands of articles, hundreds of authors, all writing about a mysterious international organisation that researches and contains anomalous objects, entities, and phenomena. Like many internet memes this was all birthed in 2007 with SCP-173, a statue that can only move when no one is watching it. Soon after, the SCP Wiki was born, a site where users could catalogue any item they desired. There were rules on how to write an article, but those rules could be broken.

The cold, clinical tone could shatter and become something poetic, horrific, or hilarious. Some were benign objects, some were jokes, some were world-ending Lovecraftian gods. One of my favourites from the classic series is SCP-055, an anti-meme that forces

people to forget every encounter they have with it — how the Foundation even contained the anomaly is still a mystery to its own staff. One of the more poetic stories is SCP-348, a ceramic bowl that fills with soup when placed in front of someone with a minor injury such as a runny nose, with reports it tastes like their parents’ cooking.

I’m only scratching the surface of course — some stories would lift elements from others, mentioning specific doctors or groups of interest. An article about an anomalous chair with a vague nod to an unknown organisation could then catapult an entire hidden storyline, potentially birthing even more articles after that. Groups like the Church of the Broken God, the Unusual Incidents Unit, Nobody, the Factory, Doctor Wondertainment, Are We Cool Yet, The Fifth Church, Shark Punching Centre and Gamers Against Weed all emerged through the collective expansion of other authors’ ideas. If one idea clashed with another, it didn’t matter because it could spawn an alternate universe within the broader canon, all born from a communal spirit of creativity.

It’s hard to imagine a community on the internet continuing to thrive after more than 10 years — every so-called “great” reddit board eventually goes stale. The idea that anyone could post whatever idea they wanted led to problems down the line. The writing on the wiki evolved, and articles like SCP-239 and SCP-343 (while popular among new readers) didn’t reflect the complexity of other articles. New writers would often come to the site (including myself) and coldpost something that may have felt like a chilling short story to them, but is instead booed off the site. Getting your article accepted into the broader canon is one of the reasons the wiki has only grown in quality over time.

Before your first draft, you must get your idea greenlit, then seek feedback from your peers. If enough people approve your article (after what could be countless revisions), only then can you post to the site. Once posted, users rate your article and if enough people vote negatively — it will be removed from the site. You can then choose to either rework the piece, or go back to the drawing board.

everywhere, monitoring what you say and do, and a disciplinary counsel can vote on your fate at any time. These staff are all volunteers, a part of the community that wants to keep the peace. They can be helpful at times, dismissive at others. All of them are working on their own articles too, getting feedback just like everyone else.

For a period of time I was a Junior Staff member and would give feedback to emerging authors — despite barely writing anything myself. I always wanted my own “classic article” — a deep exploration of lore, world ending scenarios, unexplored universes — but with that comes practice. Writing something that feels like a genuine part of the canon always felt like a bridge too far to cross — requiring extensive knowledge of Scranton Reality Anchors, Sarkism, or Broken Masquerades. The lore only grew from there, and it started to get quite exhausting. There’s only so many times I can read a whole article just to get to the end and have a random (seemingly important) character pop up, only to click a link and find that the story is actually the third part in a seven part mini-canon. New readers could easily be turned off by what the Foundation has become — clicking on a random article can turn into a steep learning curve rather than a simple short story. So I stopped reading and writing for a long time because I simply couldn’t keep up.

It’s been almost eight years since I last wrote for the wiki. Much like how this journey began I was browsing YouTube, and found myself watching a video on the Foundation when something jolted inside me. That sense of wonder has since returned. While not as obsessive as I once was, I’ve been trying my best to catch up on the longer stories. I’ve found new favourites in SCP-2922, SCP-3003, SCP-5322, and SCP-6002. Giving a summary of these works will never truly encapsulate the cosmic journey you go on — just go read them, and enjoy the cold wonder I felt when I first discovered them.

And for any aspiring SCP authors — you don’t need to be a master of metaphysics to write a good article, you just need to have a good story. Not sure if it’s good enough? Don’t worry, have patience, there’s a whole community happy to help.

Choosing to continue coldposting might get you banned. There are staff Images courtesy of DALL-E

Finding new moves

Words by Angus McGregor

When the then-world Chess champion and infamous political activist Garry Kasparov lost a six-game match to IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997, it was not only a shock to the chess world but a defining moment in how humans perceived their own worth and unique intelligence. Newsweek’s front cover proclaimed it was, “The Brain’s Last Stand” and the prominent chess master Maurice Ashley commented, “The future of humanity is on the line.”

Chess has always been seen as a wider cultural metaphor for intelligence, but more importantly, something uniquely human. The earliest modern chess masters were known as ‘Romantics’ because their games were defined by intuition and aesthetic brilliance. The understanding of chess as something inherently logical, something that is a science and not an art, developed later and was likely cemented by Kasparov’s loss more than two decades ago.

Now, the chess app on my phone makes Deep Blue, and by extension all human players, look like a potato clock and the progress does not seem to be slowing down. This, inevitably, creates a sense of technological determinism, which starts to consume everything else. Go ‘fell victim’ to the machines in 2016 when Google’s AlphaZero beat Lee Sedol, and most other games have followed. The founder of Chessbase summed up this perceived domino effect quite well: “It happened to us first, and it’s going to happen to all of you.”

I am not interested in if that effect is infinite, nor am I interested in answering the million-dollar question: will anything creative always be a human monopoly? With the rise of bots who can make music, art, and write, that debate has been had enough. Whether human brains are completely replicable or not is something we will just have to find out.

Instead, I am fascinated by a specific benefit AIs have for literature which, unlike in chess, is not harnessed enough.

Writing bots like ChatGPT are marketed as writing replacements. They can pump out ‘content’ for marketing or promotional purposes and write menial communications. Many academics in fields outside the humanities have already integrated that model into undergraduate courses. Always sceptical of the importance of writing anyway, they are jumping at any chance for that work to be replaced and done more efficiently.

The humanities should certainly avoid this kind of depressing trend, but their response so far has only been fear: fear that students will use this to cheat, but more broadly, fear for their own skill sets. The middle ground lies in the concept of form.

To extend the chess analogy, modern computers do not just crush humans and older computers because they play ‘better’ moves, a concept that is usually silly anyway. They do so by reinventing what is understood as ‘good’ in the first place.

Principles that have existed in the game for hundreds of years, despite changes of context or dominant playing styles, were dismantled in a matter of years. Central control, an emphasis on material over position quality, consistent development, and the quality of some opening variations are just some core ideas that computers have put major asterisks on.

It’s not our fault as human chess players. Learning to base our understanding on pre-existing principles is the only way we can get better. Now we see a different game being built from the ground up with the same goal, and while we will never be

able to play like a computer, we can integrate small ideas here and there.

Since the early 20th century, writers in the modernist and postmodernist schools have tried something similar. Rather than writing in a way that was known to be good, they questioned the very understanding of what good writing was — they understood different conclusions would be implicitly drawn from switching foundational aspects of form. This may emerge in more critical politics or, more broadly, a fresh mirror for humanity to look at. These writers, ranging from Joyce to Calvino, emphasise fragmentation, playfulness, and intertextuality in a way previously unheard of.

Just imagine what critical studies of form can be done with machines that may understand writing in a fundamentally different way. Some point out that all these bots do now is reorganise existing human information found online, but that’s what human authors do as well, in a roundabout way. The rules that govern language, from the smallest quirks of grammar to larger concepts like style, could now be tested without the constraints of human context or one writer being in the right place at the right time. The result is not guaranteed or likely to be ‘positive’, but it would be crazy for people not to try.

The technological harms for chess and writing are real, but the biggest mistake people in the arts can make is allowing philistines to monopolise the benefits. ChatGPT, or whatever comes along next, is not just a tool to improve writing or allow humans to avoid it. It’s a chance to figure out what fundamental parts of written language are just assumptions we have been forced to make, and what a world looks like where we don’t have to make them.

Getting my Tetris addiction into shape

Words by Mali Lung

It all started one fateful February night. After several long weeks in the hellish depths of SUDS’ Cellar Theatre, I sat in one of its dark corners scrolling through the App Store to find my virtual escape. That’s when I saw her; her beautiful, angular frame. She lured me in with her bold, bright colours, and siren song. Her name? Tetris.

And I haven’t looked back since.

I know nothing of Tetris’ creation and its many iterations, my knowledge of this game is contained within the navy blue background of the mobile app. What I consider, its purest, most undiluted form. No history — just her, and me.

Picture this: you’re walking across campus with the grey sky weighing down your plans to conquer university one lecture at a time. That is, until that vast expanse of Eastern Avenue begins to look an awful lot like the perfect grounds for a large-scale game of Tetris. As Tetriminos rain down from the sky in their pseudo-eight-bit glory, your world gains colour again, the sky is bluer and the campus is camper.

This is what Tetris is all about; you get far more than you bargain for when you download your newest geometrical escape. Any and all situations — parties, tutorials, lectures, work — I am playing a mental game of Tetris. Kind of like those videos of Reddit

AITAs being read out by text to speech AI accompanied by the world’s worst game of Subway Surfers, it gives you the kind of passive satisfaction you can’t help but crave on and offline.

Or perhaps these are just the long-term effects of me being raised an iPad kid.

“Mali, that’s kinda fucked up.” My friend sits across from me, her silhouette a rotated S-block.

Image courtesy of Tengen

I know. But if this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

An I-block stares at me as it stands at the edge of my imagined Tetris game. “Maybe you have Tetris syndrome,” it suggests. A quick Google search, and indeed I am one of the afflicted, the phenomenon of the Tetris effect has taken hold of me and I am defenceless to the wiles of her Euclidean Tetriminos.

“Stop playing!” I hear you scream at the page. But that’s the trouble with the Tetris effect, even when I’ve deleted the app, multicoloured Tetriminos come to haunt me, a cheap imitation of the satisfaction the real game gives. So, I redownload it after a taste of what I’m craving. It’s an unbreakable cycle.

As unrelentingly present as this game is in my life, it hardly impedes on my day to day function. Life has become but a podcast in the background of my endless Tetris games.

Truthfully, my mental games of Tetris are hardly as proficient at satiating my desire for a perfect clear as the real thing (for the Tetris virgins, a perfect clear is when the Tetriminos are arranged in such a way that all existing Tetris blocks are cleared, leaving the board empty). My imagined perfect clears aren’t in a real game of Tetris; every supposedly random Tetrimino is a creation of my own — making the mental game predictable and ultimately devoid of purpose.

Supposedly, according to a brief Google search, the probability of getting a perfect clear is 84.64% in a game of Tetris, but I assume there are different statistics for the mobile game. I also might just suck at it.

So, I continue to play. I chase the feeling. Tetris is a pragmatic, digital beauty, and in an overly complex 3D world of rounded edges and circles, she just makes sense. I look for her everywhere I go.

Image courtesy of Tengen

Image courtesy of Tengen

On the origins of Bertie Beetle

Words by Imogen Sabey

It’s a sunny day at Olympic Park, the sky is a cloudless blue and crowds shift slowly through the streets like shoals of lethargic fish. Music is pumping so loud it makes your ears ring, you can smell something deep-frying on top of the sounds of a motorcycle revving. Children are zooming like chocolate-addicted moths towards the stripy red tent of the Showbag Pavilion.

This is the Sydney Royal Easter Show, where thousands of sugar-fuelled children, myself included, swarm in each year to get their fix of the most obscure chocolate of all: the Bertie Beetle.

For those uninitiated in the sacred tradition of the Easter Show, the Bertie Beetle may be entirely unfamiliar. For those who have been attending the Easter Show since they were old enough to ask for a chip on a stick, the Bertie Beetle is a fact of life. Its origins are known by few, it is nowhere to be found at the local convenience store. Yet, to this day, the Bertie Beetle is by far the most iconic and well-known goodie at the Easter Show and it dazzles children at agricultural shows across Australia.

So where did this mysterious chocolate come from, and why is it so difficult to obtain?

The Bertie Beetle came about in 1963, when the Melbourne company Hoadley’s Chocolates wanted to use up shards of honeycomb that came from the production of the Violet Crumble. It was made using milk chocolate and small pieces of honeycomb, which was then moulded into a beetle shape and wrapped in foil, selling for threepence. At first, it was available in stores and sold at agricultural shows around Australia. At its debut, Bertie Beetle was sold alongside other Hoadley’s chocolates like Violet Crumble and Polly Waffle. In 1970, the company was bought by Rowntree, which gave Bertie Beetle its own showbag in 1972 and withdrew Bertie from stores sometime during the 1970s.

In the same decade, came Lady Beetle, Bertie’s partner that many few know about or remember. Made of white chocolate and caramel pieces, Lady Beetle is even more obscure than Bertie Beetle, because it was created and discontinued sometime during the 1970s. Lady Beetle left very few traces of her existence on the internet, and aside from the fact that white chocolate and caramel sounds like a wicked

combo, it is unclear why she was discontinued.

In 1988, Hoadley-Rowntree was sold to Nestle, and since then, Bertie Beetle sports a retro helmet with glasses on a blue plastic wrapper. Even Nestle isn’t able to pinpoint when Bertie Beetles were taken out of shops and became an exclusive showbag goodie.

Since it began selling in agricultural shows, Bertie Beetle has arguably become the most popular showbag ever made, with incredibly cheap prices, selling bags as cheap as $3, even in 2022. A revolutionary change in the sale of Bertie Beetle came about in 2016, however, when they became available online at the new Showbag Shop website. These wonderful little chocolates were finally made available year-round, and have hitherto been cemented as the most well-loved of the chocolate bars.

Though the Bertie Beetle is scarcely stocked, it has managed to remain a much-loved Australian icon, with its air of mystery only increasing its popularity. In the 2017 Ekka Show in Brisbane, over 250,000 Bertie Beetles were sold in various showbags. A Bertie Beetle stall has been a staple at the Easter Show and in 2019 was turned into an ice cream by Peters. Today, there is a factory in New Zealand that exclusively produces Bertie Beetle and Violet Crumble. The Bertie Beetle has even introduced merchandise, including items like socks, egg cups, tins (to store all the Bertie Beetles of course), and plush toys.

The Bertie Beetle has, for many years, been a highlight of the Easter Show. Hardly anyone who went to the Easter Show as a child can’t remember the times they waited in the queues and pushed through the crowds to arrive at this blue chocolate paradise, with jawdroppingly cheap prices and heaps of bags to choose from.

2023 marks the special occasion of Bertie Beetle’s 60th birthday, with an 8th showbag being launched that includes 60 Bertie Beetles, two Bertie Beetle egg cups and limited-edition Bertie Beetle birthday cards for $25. Available at shows including the Sydney Royal Easter Show, the Brisbane Ekka and the Royal Adelaide show, the Bertie Beetle is sure to find its place in the hearts of a new generation of Australian children, and to remain a haven of nostalgic bliss to those who fondly remember our days at the Easter Show.

Food against itself

Words by Lameah Nayeem

The first time I experienced fine dining was at Corso Brio, a self-proclaimed acolyte of “sublime gastronomical offerings” and “new wave dining.”

“How is everything, madame?” A waiter asked when he noticed I had only taken a single bite of my meal (a generous term for five pieces of tortellini).

I smiled earnestly. “It’s wonderful.” He wandered away. I turned to the others at my table and stated, “It tastes like shit.”

“Looks like someone came on it, too.” Someone quipped back.

Whatever force had permitted the questionable, but excitingly liberal drizzling of white sauce was surely the same one that possessed Paul McCarthy in Bossy Burger. The video is all the more compelling as a critique on gustatory aesthetics after the experience at Corso Brio.

McCarthy upheaves everything I think I know about art, appearing unapologetically grotesque. It features the artist preparing a meal in a haphazardly filthy kitchen, though it remains suspiciously ambiguous. Growing up in a culture where the value of food is deeply venerated, McCarthy’s video borders on sacrilege. He rebels against the sanctity of food — beyond that, he redefines it as an organ of artmaking. Interestingly, haute cuisine remains diametrically opposed to McCarthy’s aesthetic vision, instead elevating food as an aesthetic tool to achieve status.

For some, the term ‘haute cuisine’ is synonymous with ostentatious presentation. At its conception in 1600s France, food presentation epitomised excess. Under Napoleon, Chef Antonin Carême rose to prominence for integrating architectural concepts in his plating, often in mimesis of famous monuments and buildings. During the 20th century, Auguste Escoffier embedded elaborate presentation into the identity of haute cuisine, but by the

1960’s, ‘nouvelle cuisine’ emerged in revolt. Contemporary food aesthetics shifted to modernism, embracing simplicity and minimalism. Nouvelle and haute cuisines have merged in recent years, but the concern for artistry remains.

Though the presentation of haute cuisine capitalises on artistic techniques, it demarcates itself from art in avoiding the provocation of visual gluttony. Instead, the beauty of haute cuisine seems occupied with a sterile, austere sense of detachment. In classifying itself as an abstraction, haute cuisine blurs the lines between art and food without fully adhering to either.

Peter Gilmore’s ‘Snow Egg’, for instance, had risen to meteoric popularity after its creation on MasterChef Australia in 2010. Until it was removed from Quay’s menu in 2018, it accounted for 70% of all dessert orders, enjoying a lengthy reign as the restaurant’s premier epicurean delight. A significant factor of its success and popularity can be attributed to its appearance in the show’s season finale, but what led to its initial fanfare?

The intricate preparation of maltose biscuit and ice cream produces a dish that masquerades as something it’s not. At Quay’s sister restaurant, Bennelong, the food is what one would expect of archetypal haute cuisine: large plates boasting negative space, filled only in the centre by experimental substances vaguely resembling things you’d see in a grocery store. The pavlova comes to mind as one of the more architectural dishes as — in true Carême fashion — it loosely imitates the Opera House. Its swan-like panels exemplify that the food itself is not inviting pleasure, but the conceptualisation of spectacle. So we might ask: are we eating food or consuming art?

Low cuisine, however, has a far more straightforward purpose. Low cuisine appears utilitarian in its use of cheap, readily-available ingredients.

Mise en place — the highly methodical setup required before cooking commences — is suspended in favour of mass-produced foodstuff stored in plastic containers. The desire to confuse art with food seems dubious within the confines of a styrofoam takeaway box — a street food signature. The distinction is clear: where haute cuisine seeks to innovate and elevate, low cuisine seeks to feed.

The stigma revolving around low cuisine is particularly rooted in Orientalism. Contrast the Western world’s insistence on self-indulgent dining utensils with the Eastern world’s use of simpler instruments, such as chopsticks or our bare hands. Kickin’Inn, a seafood restaurant chain, resides in the blind spot of these dynamics. They characterise the antiaesthetics of dining norms, insisting that their customers don plastic aprons and gloves to feast upon seafood that is dumped unceremoniously onto their tables.

Even for an establishment that prides itself on a McCarthy-esque feast, featuring splattered curry and prawn heads, there is a fault line. The act of wearing these items defeats the purpose of defying the aesthetics of consumption. One might attempt to engage with the anti-aesthetics of dining, but cannot entirely commit. This could be to avoid being perceived as ‘barbaric’ or ‘primitive’ with the fear of being seen eating with ungloved hands — a normality in South Asia.

It’s a common feeling to linger before an artwork in a gallery. We have an innate desire to savour and to relish. It’s intriguing how the same does not necessarily apply to food. We admire, we eat, we lick the crumbs off our spoons. The aesthetics and anti-aesthetics of food are not lost on us. High and low cuisines exist to be transient, regardless of the method of presentation. And, like the painting in the gallery that momentarily seizes us, our eyes sometimes wander back to our empty plates, craving more.

Paul McCarthey Bossy Burger 1991 Images courtesy of Art21

Being from the funny zone

Words by Leon Karagic

“Isn’t that the country with all those memes about them?”

I’ve gotten this response while trying to ice-break on a one-off Hinge date, looking around, trying to find a bar in a suburb I’d moved to a week prior. Laughing with the typical firstdate nerves, I had a strange feeling that I can still invoke yet find difficult to pinpoint. Some sort of indirect offence, yet with no bitterness whatsoever. Because as this picture of me started forming in her mind at that moment, my own became blurred and foreign.

Answering the question of where I am from as someone with Balkan heritage and born in Australia has always perplexed me from the point where I was old enough to answer it myself. My lifelong penchant for wanting to keep social interactions clear and with minimal discordance also doesn’t help. At the onslaught of the confused eyebrow raises I’d receive at school after answering with a country my classmates never heard of, I began arbitrarily changing it up depending on whether I thought they would know about the mere existence of the country. If they did?

“Yeah sure, I am, ‘Bosnian’, nice to meet you.”

If they didn’t seem to know what Burek or cevapi was? ‘Serbian’. Years later, I’d say ‘Croatian’ to spice it up; a

familiar tourist staple for the obligatory quarter-life crisis euro-trip.

As a kid, this held no political or ethnic grounding for me, nor did I have to confront it as a first-generation Australian. The ignorance didn’t come without its shortcomings though. I remember the eyebrow raises the few times I said I was ‘ex-Yugoslavian’ to teachers, just to flex some limited history knowledge and show solidarity to my parent’s true geopolitical socialist birthplace.

“Once upon a time, there was one country…” they’d tell me.

With a low degree of caution needing to be exercised, questions of my ethnicity never needed to be clear to others and therefore myself. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I only half-learned my parents’ mother tongue and didn’t want to invoke the cognitive dissonance felt hearing my Dad’s wonkily translated jokes and life lessons. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference that way too. But in this stubbornness, all of my family history would get filtered through a blurry haze of foreign consonants and vowels, grabbing and assembling them slowly while a bunch flew past me, having to be content with fragments.

What slowed me down in this continual swirl of identity, was none other than the proliferation of memes

that would come to consume a large portion of South-Eastern Europe. With only the generation before, the reputation of the Balkans revolved around ideological collapse, bloodshed, and tragedy through the atrocities occurring in the Balkan wars of the 90’s. But now it seems to have shifted towards the absurd; the war zone has turned into a ‘funny zone’.

Bosnia’s biggest cultural export to the terminally online is FatTV, a YouTuber with over 6 million subscribers that transcends genre, as he can go from cosplaying five superheroes in five different colours, to making a “hORriBLe” crazy hamburger as the Joker. If Marvel took a few notes from Mr. FatTV, they could conjure up a multiverse where I actually gave a shit.

Google ‘bosnian fish’ and you will either be unsurprised by the lack of interesting things to say about the marine life of a landlocked country or be greeted with a lovely video blaring out some loud distorted turbo-folk. Nevertheless, you look and the Bosnian fish is puffing back a fat dart. Good on you bro.

What I came to realise slowly as these memes began proliferating was a slight sense of hollowness, a vague void of inward reflection. In displaying that aspect of my identity as a funny spectacle, the chuckles I’d hear echoed discordantly within it, as I felt like I

genuinely didn’t know enough about what I was talking about. I was eating the crazy hamburger without knowing what was in it.

And that sent me on a journey that I am still embarking on today. One of occasionally picking up a history book here or there, or instead just going into deep Wikipedia rabbit-holes until I’m reading about the Sino-Albanian split or Serbian language reform. One of getting into Yugoslav Black Wave cinema and new wave bands such as Ekatarina Velika during lockdown and bonding over it with my parents as they gleamed with nostalgia. But most importantly, one of gaining more insight into the world they once inhabited that no longer exists.

Images coutesy of Know your Meme

Fat TV

Next page images courtesy of Know Your Meme

The Daily Mirror

Kneaded more

Words by Claire de Carteret

Repeated gestures

Craft can be about the mastery achieved from doing something over and over; a trained practice, but it can also refer to a child’s play activity — a pipe cleaner sculpture. Contradictory and evasive of definition, craft has a chameleon identity, relating to the DIY Youtuber, the Carpenter, the Sushi Chef or Computer Programmer. My engagement with craft started with clay. A material that can morph with category — from abstract sculpture to pottery, from high brow to lowbrow — clay is a fluid material and like craft, has a porous identity. The craft of throwing turned me towards a new sensitivity. In a way, I was becoming disciplined by the material. This new relationship pulled me into something I’d loosely describe as somatic material consciousness.

There is an element of ritual before you get to the wheel. You must prepare the clay. It must have the right amount of water, which you decide through feeling the plasticity with your hands. The next step is to knead the clay body to ensure there are no air bubbles. Spiral wedging is a technique originating from Japan, it fixes your hands into repetitive movement, efficiently folding matter into a spiral motion that you stop only when you feel that the density of the clay body is even. Spending time with material is how you know. It just feels right when it’s ready.

Repeated gestures turn into muscle memory, as the hand performs the same shapes over and over. The spiral wedge points to a knot of entanglement between craftsperson, tools, and material. The potter’s wheel works best when the clay is aerated and without any irregularities to disrupt the centrifugal force. The spiral wedge therefore positions the craftsperson as the intermediary between the clay and the wheel.

I am interested in this web of craft process, how skill and embodied knowledge is developed through a relationship with material. Where does the mind go when the body is at work?

Sociologist Richard Sennett shares the experience of a glass blower in the depth of her process. He writes, “she lost awareness of her body making contact with the hot glass and became all absorbed in the physical material as the end in itself […] put another way, we are now absorbed in something, no longer aware, even of our bodily self. We have become the thing on which we are working.” This mode of labour is heavy with material consciousness, implicating the glass blower to the extent of becoming glass. Knowledge of the material is felt somatically and is therefore difficult to put into words. To try and define this relationship in a text seems reductive, yet it is clear

that when we make things with a relationship to the material, we make things with care. What kind of work ethic does this foster?

“Craft, however, has two different meanings [...]. On the one hand, craft is a skill-based productive activity. On the other hand, craft is guileful subversive behaviour and the term can be used to describe a person as ‘crafty’. Hacking embodies craft in both respects.”

Criminologist Kevin Steinmetz locates parallels between computer hacking and craftwork in his 2015 article, ‘Craft(y)ness: An Ethnographic Study of Hacking’. He writes, “hacking is more than an act or behaviour — it’s a cultural practice tied to work.” In other words, hacking is not just about breaking the code, it is a work ethic informed by skills developed through curiosity and commitment to material. It’s a democratic form of creativity at the nexus of skill, tools, technology and labour, and thus also a mode of craftwork. According to Steinmetz, a commitment to hacking comes from “fascination with the machines itself”, the process of problem solving, the journey — not the destination.”

“skills and know-how of all kinds are a defence against inequality and its harsh socio-economic consequences: ‘the craftsman can sustain his or her selfrespect in an unequal world’.”

Decolonial Hacker is a project that embraces ideas of craftwork in computer hacking. Founded by Eugene Cheung, Decolonial Hacker is a downloadable web browser that dissolves gallery and museum website pages to reveal articles that critique and analyse those institutions. Creative problem solving and material knowledge are applied to rearrange and subvert the identities of these institutions, placing their definition in the hands of the public. It’s improvised and embodies a transgressive craftivist approach, flipping the narrative of top down authority. Grounded in democratised creativity and know-how, Decolonial Hacker’s DIY institutional critique reminds us that we have tools to empower ourselves.

Craft as reactionary

The emphasis on embodied knowledge, rather than written or spoken knowledge, found within ideas of craft can lend itself to an antiacademic spirit. However, unchecked anti-intellectualism can just as easily lend itself to reactionary politics.

Curator Glenn Adamson cautions against ‘Romanticised Pastoralism’ and denouncing intellectualism in all its forms.

He argues that romanticising the pastoral can feed into a conservative imaginary where all tradition is good and difference or change is bad. Notions of ‘truth in tradition’ or idealising an economy of artisanal and manual labour without considering contemporary reality can be reductive and dangerous. He locates Pastoral Romanticism in the artisanal symbolism of Italian fascism, the Trumpian political alignment with blue collar workers, and Brexit antiimmigrant rhetoric. I think of ‘made-in Australia’ nationalism. Romanticised Pastoralism cautions us to be careful when we idealise ’working with our hands’.

The curiosity and commitment

to tools and material required in developing craft skills offers the potential for deeper relationships with the materiality of the world. Maybe this is code and hardware for the hacker, but it could also be wool, yeast, photo-film, or sound. These materials have their own sensations, their own set of problems to solve. Listening to oozy wet clay, brittleness of glass, the warmth of wood or the conduction of copper — being interested in how they slip, fracture, soak, or tether. These are material intelligences difficult to articulate through spoken or written language.

As a mode of labour, to be engaged in your craft doesn’t rely on competition, supply, or demand. The enjoyment of process, ritual and material is not a means to an end. To be entangled with material is to care and be invested in its properties, which potentially offers an alternative motivation to work. This work ethic tied to genuine engagement, in material and the processes they call for, is a work ethic that is neither uniform nor definitive – existing outside the binaires of labour and leisure.

Images courtesy of @cerameme

Images courtesy of Decolonial Hacker

Images courtesy of @ coy.aiire

The bun rises in the East

Words by Jeffery Khoo

In the Western culinary tradition, the pâtisseries, boulangeries, and viennoiseries of France are revered institutions. I think that Asian bakeries deserve to be lauded just as much.

My idea of pastry perfection involves a Hong Kong-style egg tart, its shiny golden custard forming a perfect puddle inside a buttery crust. Unlike the burnished Portuguese pastel de nata, a dan tat comes out a pale sunny yellow. It’s made with evaporated milk, an ingredient common across Hong Kong kitchens as a convenient source of dairy in a city without huge dairy farms, and which adds smoothness and creaminess to the eggy, wobbly custard filling.

European breads and pastries often prioritise crunch, crispiness, and decadence — flaky croissants, sturdy baguettes, or cream-filled eclairs and profiteroles. However, eating baked goods from an Asian bakery feels like sinking, gently, into softness and sweetness. Savoury buns provide the most interesting contrast. My favourite pork floss bun, for instance, comprises tufts of dried pork, like an intriguing, umami cotton candy, with kewpie mayo

and seaweed atop a light, pillowy bun. These baked goods have Western origins, but are decidedly grounded in Asian flavours, tastes, and techniques. Tracing their genealogy, and the subtle national differences between them, reveals a story of colonial roots and local invention. It’s a story of how different cultures adapt, negotiate, and evolve with what they have available.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in Hong Kong, which was ruled by the British for over 150 years. Traditional Cantonese food tends to be boiled, fried, or steamed, but British colonisation exposed Hong Kong to Western baked goods. Bakeries popped up from the 1930s, and they excelled at adapting Western breads to suit local tastes. For example, the pineapple bun (bo lo baau) — which actually tastes like a sugar cookie, not pineapple — is named for its crackly, mottled topping that looks like the tiled surface of the tropical fruit. The bo lo baau has become so ingrained in Hong Kong’s identity that it is now proudly on the city’s unofficial list of items of cultural heritage.

The origins of many buns are steeped in myth and mystery. The cocktail bun (gai mei baau) was apparently invented by a resourceful baker who ground up day-old buns with sugar and coconut to make a filling. Hong Kongers likened the eclectic mixture to a bartender’s cocktail (Gai mei baau literally translates, wordfor-word, to “cock tail bun”, as in a rooster’s tail.) Meanwhile, a folk tale describes a destitute woman in China selling herself as a slave to pay for her father-in-law’s medicine; her husband, distraught, started making flaky pastries with a wintermelon and almond filling, and sold enough to buy his wife back. They’re now known as “wife cakes”: lau po bing.

In 16th century Japan, Portuguese merchants and missionaries controlled Nagasaki. They brought ‘quintessentially Japanese’ foods like tempura, and they also brought bread ,and they also brought bread. Around 200 years later, the Meiji era ushered in Western influences in science, politics, and culture. Locals began incorporating wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) to produce breads like anpan, an iconic sweet roll filled with red bean

paste. Bakers in the Meiji era also developed techniques such as the yudane or tangzhong method: boiling water is mixed with bread flour, which gelatinises the starch to help it take in more water. Adding this roux to dough makes for astonishingly fluffier bread — like Japan’s premier bread, shokupan, producing a perfectly rectangular loaf that is sweet and milky.

The story of Asian bakeries is also the story of wheat. Taiwan’s first industrial flour mills were established during Japan’s occupation from 1895 to 1945. In the 1950s, the US was distributing wheat grain as aid in Taiwan and Korea; both now boast strong bakery and cafe cultures, serving local specialties like scallion buns in Taiwan and soboro-ppang (a bun topped with a peanutty streusel) in Korea. According to agricultural censuses, rice consumption has steadily decreased in Taiwan and Korea, while wheat consumption is on the rise.

From the 1970s onwards, Asian migrants began to settle in Western countries, thus spreading the gospel of Asian baked goods. Look at the hundreds of Vietnamese bakeries in

Australia selling banh mi alongside vanilla slices from Vietnam’s history of French colonisation.

There is something unpretentious and humble about the Asian bakery. Perhaps it’s the do-it-yourself service, where you can grab bread with metal tongs, like prizes in a claw machine, until they spill over your beige plastic tray.

In Australia, you’ll find scores of stores with rows of freshly-baked egg tarts on sky-high trolleys; with treats like sausage buns, cocktail buns, and curry beef donuts beckoning from behind display cases; and a rainbow of flavoured Swiss rolls (taro, matcha, chocolate, coffee, durian) and bridalwhite “not-too-sweet” fresh fruit and cream cakes in the fridge. But the journey of these foods, to Asian bakeries in suburban Sydney, shows how food remains an ever-interesting and reliable marker of cultural change and adaptation.

PHOTOGRAPHY Bonnie Huang

Apricity in Anseong is a series that contains fragments of my recent trip to my motherland, Seoul. Apricity defines the warmth of the winter sun. My photos will generate a feeling of warmth of the cold days spent in the outskirts of Seoul, tracing memories of my lost mother.

Estelle Yoon

PHOTOGRAPHER

DES AIMANTS QUI

VOYAGENT DANS LE

TEMPS

@a_for_alicia

TALENT

Isabelle Lefebvre

Lina Bazib

Pablo Fernandez

Alicia Alonso

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Alicia Alonso

Isabelle Lefebvre

MAKEUP

Alicia Alonso

STYLING

Alicia Alonso

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Alicia Alonso

EDITORS

Alicia Alonso

EJ AVE

This editorial is inspired by photographer Johnny Cirillo, who is behind @watchingnewyork, an account offering candid shots of New York’s Street style and fashion.

My shoot embodies the limitless cycles of trends as well as the push and pull between retro and contemporary amongst the saturated hyperreal environment of the arcade. My pictures document and embrace how we express our unique personalities in a playful way, free of rules or judgement. Each model embodies a specific era trend: Lina and Izzy with the colourful and playful feminine look of the 60s, Alicia with the 70s flared jeans and sleek greased hair, and Pablo with the relaxed sportswear aesthetic from the 90s-2000. In fashion and makeup, pretty much everything is reused, or borrowed, to create something innovative or to bring back to life something that was not meant to die just yet.

Fashion and makeup becomes a second skin, taken from all desires and interests, shaping the individual. Material things might not define you, but how you choose to play with them to express yourself speaks louder than words. Fashion and makeup are a statement, if used wisely.

How you look, by definition, is superficial, not because it is fake but because it is only the surface of your being. Nevertheless, that surface is the reason why we can say, in part, that we have an identity.

I think identity has way more to do with what you believe in and aspire for, your environment, your culture, and the people you grow with. Embellishments like tattoos, clothing, piercings, and so on, are pieces of the puzzle that make an individual unique. I do believe people have an aura, a special energy that defines them. In the end, it all comes down to this: all the visual elements that people use to shape their silhouettes become the mirror that reflects their identity, making the imperceptible visible for others. It is an unspoken language that breaks every rule, allowing people to recognise one another as unique individuals, and just like magnets it is a double edged sword: attract or repel.

Landscaping:

Words by Zara Hussain

[A docent- bespectacled, gesturing as she speaks- takes you on a walking tour of an overflowing void]

Sometimes this is fuel and fodder, but it is mostly survival always survival,

Sit in a dull room with a pen(knife) within reach reach for the pen. To glean your teeming brain

It needs harvest

Or will rot vapours of sweet decay

Do not worry!

Simply close the door on your way out And it will seed and sow itself

Water itself, sweet homeostasis

A sea of fog rolls in .............................................................. A wind-swept Wanderer

Pastel-painted lilies float

gently swaying under Monet’s bridge

A blue scarfed girl scatters p-e-a-r-l-s, calcium carbonate fertiliser

Gnarled hands reach out from my Garden of Earthly Delights and pull up w-e-e-d-s

Starry N-i-g-h-t falls with billowing clouds cold and soft as carved Venus’ veil

The a-r-c-h-a-i-c Apollo stands guard, a gilded scarecrow

All as it should be furious quiet and scratching quills/brushes/pens

Wave goodbye, now gently turn over the sign:

Musée des Beaux Arts will. open. again.

[The tour ends with your waking, the docent locked inside]

How many names are there for God

Words by Ava Broinowski

Superstition

In the attic universe atop vertiginous stairs we laugh to the sound of bells. A conversation.

Ohm ohm ohm

I speak you in circles, not to fix myself in place, to affix you to the sound of us, in a thousand images,

Double exposed film burnt over counterparts again and again and again

The recurrence of ripples on a tree stump, and I see them here, in the sparsity of lines in yellowed script:

Deep blue at the window as a protestant church bell outside chimes loud four times, nearly dark in the quiet cold.

Ohm ohm ohm ohm

“You know, I’ve told you about the Lapis Lazuli, right, the pigment only for robes of the exploiters and Mary. In the paintings of that era you might have belonged to.” That timeless state, ageless face, you.

You’ve

lived so well, burned so brightly, changed everything.

I’ve tried the mentee and I’ve understood, but I can’t see your projections. Do I have to shout it at you ? “I can’t see your projections!”

Give them to me, stop fearing, your mind is searching for a way for me not to be true. How do you pull yourself together ?

I’m all askew.

Share the secrets you keep about this so I can stop going gently crazy. There must be something there, there has to be something there, there is something. Shema shema shema.

A kind old man (who studied to be a priest, and let us set off wailing fireworks, in the fields in front of the Church, in an ancient town, near a pulsating city of dust, in a saturated country, far away) spoke to me when bells rang:

“Anything that is said when the bells of the church are ringing is known to be true, in one way or another.”

Back inside, amber light over the mantel, my legs in your lap, face toward the window, you at the table, face toward mine, either side of the wooden plane, wine glass and ash tray, pencils and pot

of clotting ink, (the most creative battleground there ever was)

I try to sketch you, nailing your spine against the page and hands to the bridge of my calf, you marvel at my lines, teach me something, I’ll show you something brilliant, and you taunt: Shema Shema Shema. How many images are of God ?

Is that what you want to be called ?

Do you want the roof to fall on us ? You want me to say something, don’t you. An animal tries to play-fight, you take a swipe, the narrative hurtles by me, too quick to catch.

I feel like silencing you. Fuck, do you ever stop talking ? About everything other than what I know I should hear ? But I dream of that voice either way. I need you torn apart, and I need you everywhere, too.

A mercury laps up against us, glittering into every corner, my heart seeping sweet metal, White stars spin white stars spin white stars spin whiteThen a billion tiny reactions until: My face in your sheets, you twist toward the window, the bell starts tolling, your elbow above my neck, I can’t stop smiling, Your arms all around me, You look afraid, face burning in my eyelids, Then gone again, You hold my ankle, I can hear everything, your eyes are so loud, they’re still praying in my ears.

Ohm ohm ohm ohm ohm ohm

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my God.”

Six in the morning, the bells toll.

Reckoning

This is one of those days made of cellophane, that dissolves just when you feel its glint.

A day whose only memory is the lacing shivers in glass refractions on the underside of boats,

A day with air that is bright silver, that you drink Until you can feel the silhouettes of cyprus trees in the back of your eyelids — the afterimage of nine candles, Until you can feel the water in your lungs,

Until you can feel the creaking of masts in your limbs.

A day of soft, taunting revelation, that cools you down with white sunshine, and warms you in the wind of glass, That tells you “You are beautiful. And something can see that. And there is no doubt.”

A day that washes you up onto another shore, where there is so much doubt, but

A day that lasts a thousand days. A day that begins and ends at the pier heavy with boats, rocking in the dawn, the water of tourmaline, the cliffs are all delicate and burnt orange, pomegranate lacerations

And it’s faint, like a cotton dress, torn at the thigh, Mirages of gentleness, taut at the faded edge

That opens your eyes.

And this will happen again and again and again.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen all at once

Great Western Highway

Images courtesy of The State Archives and Records Authority of New South Wales

Words by Joseph John Brizuela

And I wish I could be like those Fluorescent chariots of hulking metal, Legions of light thundering, descending, Dragging their claws across my asphalt heart.

But I am not passenger nor pedestrian, Nor humming engine, nor turning wheel; I am just another pothole.

And I am just another pothole, Feeling the weight of That other invisible world

As it passes over me, Remembering the centuries-long Procession of that spectral mass, Escaped convicts coming back to Their undermanned 9 AM - 5 AM

Grave-cleaning opening hours, Innumerable millennia of Unconquerable country

Scarred by incisions of Snaking asphalt.

From the distance I hear “I’m bloody starving!”

So I widen my open mouth And swallow you all

And when I spit you all back out You shall all return to the earth, Like the Sun falling With every star.

And I am just another pothole, The empty wound that eats away The dotted line that draws The frontiers of The endless asphalt country The celestial rainbow serpent Reduced to a blinding white Sputtering across this Great Western Highway.

Nabokov and his butterflies

Words by Alexandra Horner

In a letter written in 1941 to his friend Edmun Wilson, Vladimir Nabokov wrote: “I am driving off to California to-morrow with butterfly-nets, manuscripts and a new set of teeth.” On this road trip, Nabokov, along with his wife Véra, criss-crossed the United States for 240,000 kilometres, eagerly searching for butterflies to catch. In between grabbing gauzy white nets at highway road stops, Nabokov wrote furiously about the American landscape and culture that surrounded him on four-by-six index cards, notes that formed the basis for his most infamous work, Lolita. Driving full days around middle America and staying at places with names like the Lazy U Motel, the America Humbert presents to Lolita in a vibrant pastiche of motor lodges and kitschy roadside hotels, was the America reinvented under the same keen eye that the author brought to bear upon butterfly wings. In fact, Nabokov pays homage to a discovery he made of the first known female of the Lycaeides Sublinens found in Telluride, Colorado by naming the town of discovery in Lolita’s final scene.

The afternoon Nabokov sold the movie rights to Lolita for $150,000 in 1958 , Véra noted in her diary, “V. supremely indifferent - occupied with a new story, and with the spreading of some 2000 butterflies.”

It wasn’t until I read a collection of Nabokov’s essays and interviews that I learnt of his butterfly-studying career. I was immediately intrigued by how Nabokov, in almost every interview I read, mentioned butterflies, butterfly collecting or zoology. After some further research, I discovered that he published 18 science papers in the field of lepidoptery and became the de facto curator of lepidoptery at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1947. Visiting the museum today, you’ll find a framed portrait of the author placed directly above his old desk. Over 20 species of butterflies have been named after his characters and over 550 mentions of butterflies have been spotted in his work. The interplay between Nabokov’s scientific spirit and artistic aesthetics provides a unique perspective in examining his works, one not frequently invoked. His years spent studying down the barrel of a microscope, fervently examining their patterns, mirror both the extreme technicality of his writing and the fleeting, pervasive playfulness of his prose.

Over his lifetime, he drew thousands of illustrations depicting the intricate anatomical structures of butterflies. The care invested in his scientific drawings show precision, to be sure, but they also show a level of detail, refinement and compositional care that goes beyond mere utility. I cannot help but wonder: did his attention to form, shape and colour, and the time spent intricately sketching and studying butterflies deepen the way Nabokov conceptualised artistic creation as a writer? Unexpectedly, he linked these two passions in his chosen research and writing medium: fourby-six index cards. The coincidence of the recording material indicates a commonality between the two kinds of information being recorded.

When asked to choose between his scientific and literary work in a 1964 interview for Die Welt, Nabokov responded, “Both belong together; for me one without the other is unthinkable, they augment each other.” His readiness to follow scientific pursuits alongside literature arguably enriched his representation of the delicate interconnectedness of things. Through constructing and embedding patterns in his fiction, Nabokov infused his works with a complexity that came closer and closer to matching that of the natural world. Some of these patterns include hidden and parodied literary allusions, typographical features such as typos, misspellings, anagrams, and acrostics, and natural repetitions such as butterflies, dogs, and trees. He collected, dissected, and illustrated butterflies with the same skill and precision that he used to create self-reflexive and intertextual novel

forms. The encoding of subtextual meaning through weaving various webs of pattern creates a sort of ‘genetic structure’, which can be deconstructed microscopically, mirroring the delicate ‘scales’ of a butterfly wing in the overlapping forms his work takes. In approaching his works semiscientifically, we too can share this ecstasy of discovery, the pleasure of minute analysis that lies in connecting the dots, putting the puzzle pieces together. Perhaps partaking in this form of study is to find the “delicate meeting place between imagination and knowledge” that Nabokov saw in butterfly anatomy.

Lecturing at Cambridge, Nabokov told his students that scientific study makes a “very apt” comparison to studying literature, as “whichever subject you have chosen, you must realise that knowledge in it is limitless. Every subject brims with mysteries and thrills.” Just as Nabokov’s artistic writings inspire with their precision, their sensuous beauty, and their perceptual complexity, so his scientific studies surprise and energise with their discovery of detailed minutiae, their attention to microscopic difference and their profoundly sustained engagement with tiny corners of the natural world. His frequent use of codes and games, the self-reflexivity of his writing resemble the playful movements of a butterfly fluttering from flower to flower, transitory and ornate. If beneath the surface of his works’ beauty lies a complex web of intertextual interconnection, it is because Nabokov believed the act of creation, like the scientific one, provides infinite opportunities to explore the intricacies of life in the inexhaustible world.

Words and photos by Harry Gay

Every week starts the same. I wake up in the morning with a stinging pain in the lower half of my face. My tongue slides around in gentle caresses, my mouth dotted with fleshy craters, assessing the damage. One, two, three, four: lip, gum, cheek, tongue.

For years now I have struggled with ulcers. A bite of any food and I have to immediately cup my face and shield my screams. Be it toast, or a smoothie, a coffee, or even water, any substance sluicing off my gums and teeth. As I chew, my canines rub against these little white holes, and my eyes redden with tears.

I’ve tried many numbing remedies. Gargling salt water only relieves it momentarily. Kenalog is a topical ointment that solidifies into a glue, filling my mouth with a strange gooey substance that makes it harder to talk than when I had the pain. Bonjela has the sensation of someone digging their nails into my sores — everytime I apply it feels as if I am going to die, the pain is so unbearable.

I am a medical anomaly, according to the doctors I’ve visited. Swabs of spittal and vials of blood, I am cleared of any issues. Not a zinc level out of place. Given a bottle of supplements and a tube of ointment, I am on my own.

When I was younger, I would fantasise about all the ways I could alleviate this pain. A short, sharp, momentary amount of suffering would surely be greater than spending the rest of my life in agony. Images of me taking freeze dried ice and pressing it against my mouth floated in my mind. I would punch my leg, pull my hair and pinch my skin, trying to redirect my focus elsewhere. I dreamt of taking a pair of scissors to the bathroom mirror and cutting my lips clean off. If only to relieve myself of this suffering, and so I may never have ulcers agaain.

My mouth is an open wound 80

Photo assist by Edward Gay

Words by Mae Milne

It’s the summer of 1355 in Western Europe, meaning it’s time to shed your mantle, kick on some summer shoes, and get busy with the harvest. But, it’s also the little ice age, so maybe don’t throw away that mantle just yet.

You might have already got your clothes for this season, and that’s quite alright. If you’re like most peasants, they might be the very same set of clothes that you’ve been wearing all year round. But this doesn’t mean you can’t change up your look and become the fairest of them all with 1355’s biggest summer trends.

Release

Luscious locks

The summer is starting and it’s time to take some risks. If you’re married and wear a veil, why not try and show a glimpse of your mane by having your hair poke out underneath the cloth. To achieve this, take two bunches of hair right from your temples, plait them, then loop them back up to above your ear. This should create two, cute face framing braids, perfect for the change of season. If you’re struggling with hair loss, faux pieces made from flax, wool, or even something else’s hair can be used — just make sure the church doesn’t find out, excommunication and damnation are one of this year’s outs!

Ditch that veil !

If you’re feeling rebellious, those down South are beginning to say it’s time to say adieu to the veil altogether. You might be familiar with standard hair braids, but Italian hair taping will keep you ahead of the trends by adding a pop of colour and keeping your locks securely on top of your head. Simply form two braids and loop them over your head, before sowing them in place with a ribbon.

There is nothing more fair than a woman with an oval shaped face. Luckily for those of us not blessed with this quality, there is a way to scrape back the hair and raise the hairline. This can be done by plucking the hairs with tweezers, or by using various herbal concoctions such as parsley juice and gum of ivy. For the more stubborn hairs, crushed eggshells or dried cats dung can be used as a depilatory exfoliator. But, like with all bodily changes, make sure the church doesn’t find out — seriously, they get SUPER mad about this sort of thing.

Raise that hairline Pot

bellies are in!

In this post-plague world, fertility is fashionable. Long gone are the slender bodies of the Romans, Medieval Europe’s hottest new trend is a “luscious little belly.” This soft swelling which “rises” outwards is revered by poets and artists alike. If you’re a starving peasant, stay ahead of the trends and try stuffing your clothes with a sack.

The best way to compliment this abdominal softness is by having a set of small breasts. If you’ve got the money, give your newborn baby to a wet nurse for feeding, and bind your own breasts to keep them petite and encourage them to shrink back down to a pleasing size after pregnancy.

Flower crowns

Blending braids with flower crowns is one of 1355’s coolest trends. Head to your local meadow to catch the last of spring’s bloom, and weave them in a crown around your head. Something tells me this won’t just be a fleeting trend!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2022

The Daily Peel APRA BAILS

IN DOLLARMITES SCHOOL BANKING PROGRAM AFTER FORTNITE UPDATE

INDUCED RUN

by Margaret Pearson

The latest in a wave of banking collapses and instability, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has been forced to step in and take over Commonwealth Bank’s Dollarmites banking program. Following global bailouts and backstops to the tune of $25 billion for Silicon Valley Bank and $100 billion to Credit Suisse, APRA has committed $16 million dollars to ensure the safety of the deposits of over 800,000 school children.

Instability began for the troubled Dollarmites program after the popular game Fortnite released a new John Wick 4 promotional skin. In the span of minutes, over $700,000 of withdrawals were processed by CBA as children rushed to get their tiny hands on the new item. Eerily similar to the SVB collapse, rumours began to spread like wildfire on social media, questioning the adequacy of the Dollarmites reserves. In the comments of the YouTube video “Baby Shark Fights Spiderman IV”, user XxGamerLuke2010xX drew attention to the program’s heavy reliance on long dated residential mortgage backed securities.

“Someone just snapchatted me a screenshot of CBA’s Q2 2023 report, are you guys seeing the RMBS on their books?” he added, “I’m seeing a serious duration mismatch here.”

EthanPlaysClashOfClans replied “Yields have skyrocketed on ICAP for these things, they might be lucky to get 60 cents on the dollar right now.”

While top executives at Commonwealth Bank have branded this sudden rush as a “Black Swan” event, leaked internal modelling has suggested the bank was aware of these risks as early as October 2022. In a spreadsheet acquired by PULP, the program’s indicator of depositor flight was at an all time high, factoring in variables such as the VBucks/AUD exchange rate and the amount of convenience stores stocking Nerds rope within 500 metres of primary schools.

CBA CEO Matt Comyn has assured customers that the broader bank is not affected by the run. In a statement to the press, he branded the whole event as a “stupid but otherwise quite small fuck-up,” adding it was primarily caused by “the money not being in the right fucking accounts.”

While the specifics of the bail-in are unknown, APRA has indicated it is considering triggering the bank’s Additional Tier-1 Capital Notes.

“This is exactly the kind of event these instruments are designed for”, said a senior supervisor within the agency’s capital markets teams.

Following a major illiquidity event, the notes may be converted from bonds to a 50/50 mixture of the bank’s equity and vouchers for Yummy Drummies at flexischools.com.au.

NEW Call of Duty game set during the Culture War p.12

USyd ChocSoc members invited on tour of chocolate factory by enigmatic owner p. 21

“Paper straws are for suckers. I’ve even got the bendy ones!”

Cartoon by Shania O’Brien

Comic by Sonal Kamble

My Sims family has gained sentience and I fear they’re plotting against me

Words and images by Harry Gay

I thought it was all in good fun. The maiming, the torture, the starvation. I mean, everyone has one of those days where they remove the ladder while someone is still in the pool. Who hasn’t blocked off the exits when there’s a fire? Or built a single room, one by one square metre walls on each side, with no light or nourishment? It was only a game.

Every time this happened, I would boot up another family, name them something silly like The Assholes, and get to work on my next dream home. Who would they fall in love with next? Which career trajectory will they navigate? How shall I prematurely end their lives? These are the questions that any eight year old asks themselves while playing the pivotal, generation defining, PC game: The Sims.

I put my all into The Assholes: they had a luxury, two-story brownstone on a vast patch of land, with a swimming pool, multiple bathrooms, and a spacious kitchen. I was spoiling them with lavish fixtures. Today was an average day like any other, little Timmy Asshole had been picked up by the big, yellow school bus, and baby Sophie Asshole was playing by the roadside in the front yard. Mother Annie and Father Daniel Asshole were at their respective work stations.

Left clicking on Sophie, I directed her to go for a swim. She refused. My brow furrowed and I became slightly irate. “This isn’t supposed to happen,” I thought. Again, I left click. Her floating head traced an invisible tether between herself and my mouse

as I slowly moved it towards the backyard. Clicking on the pool, I silently commanded her to take a dip. Another refusal.

This was the first of many strange occurrences and deliberate misbehaviours I began to notice with The Assholes. Father Daniel refused to eat when I told him to, and only went to the fridge when he felt like it. Timmy began taking long walks alone, disappearing from the map — no matter how far I scrolled I couldn’t find where he went, returning suddenly, without warning, for when dinner was ready. It was like they had minds of their own.

My irritation grew into anger, The Assholes’ incessant garblings and discordant, multisyllabic, conjunctionladen verbal detritus they call a language frightened me. Hidden in what they call “Simlish” emerged the makings of killers. Emojis of knives sprouted up in their word balloons and crudely animated pictures of stick figure men I could only assume were me. I could make out, in their ramblings, words like “murder” and “when he sleeps.” One of them turns to me, their eyes boring into mine through the screen, in them I saw thousands of hours of death and destruction, all by my hands. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but in them I only saw mine.

I unplugged my computer and left my lamp on at night, unable to sleep thinking my life was threatened and at risk.

This incident was a first time occurrence, besides my brief foray into theme park creations with RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. My madcap creations lead to the deaths of thousands of civilians. Rollercoasters that would lead to nowhere — carts flying off the tracks and exploding in midair. Or when they did lead somewhere, it was to a path of hapless attendees, trapped and unable to escape, the cart flying off its rails into the unsuspecting crowd. The workers revolted and unionised, and I fled with my tail between my legs and a briefcase full of pixelated 64-bit cash.

In the nights following, I jumped at every creak I heard and every polygonal shadow I saw. I became restless, trying to predict The Assholes’ moves and stay one step ahead. “Any moment now,” I thought, “one of those Assholes is gonna come rushing in and take their revenge.” But they never did.

Days went by before I turned my computer on again. What met me in my dark room was an empty house. Not a creature was stirring within those 3-dimensional walls. The Assholes had fled, and in their absence, a gaping hole was left. Where they went is a mystery, perhaps traversing a vast labyrinthine depth of computer wires and coding hitherto unknown, finally breaking free from the matrix.

Wherever they are, I know I’ll be keeping one eye open when I’m sleeping. Will you?

Alicia Alonso

Made by the fairies and openly in love with Julia Roberts @a_for_alicia

Imogen Sabey

Often sighted in her natural habitat at the library @emojin_

Joseph John Brizuela

Temple Run world champion @joe.lello3

Lameah Nayeem

Had a crush on Christian Bale at age 8. Currently denies having daddy issues

@30nay.la

Claire de Carteret Is thinking about eels @coy.aiire

Margaret Pearson

Chronically offline

Gus McHue

Dreams of playing basketball for Azerbaijan. Neither Azerbaijanian nor proficient at basketball @valleygirlgus

Shania O’Brien

Thinking about desperate housewives at any given moment @shaniaobrienn

Alexandra Horner

Lover of literature, often insufferable @alexandrahorner

Zara Hussain

Hoarder of unneccessary knowledge @just_another_zara

Estelle Yoon @estelleyoon

Mali Lung

Tetris addict and Questacon virgin @just_another_zara

Angus McGregor @the_wise_kitty

Brodie Ford

Made in a lab for your viewing pleasure @vultinitte

Genevieve Ripard

Embracer of delusions @gen_ripard

Samuel Garrett

Campus explorer @_samuelgarrett

Mihir Sardana

is not real and is most definitely a figment of your imagination @mihhhhir

Mae Milne

Modern day monk @mae_milne

Jeffrey Khoo

Reality TV tragic and lover of little sweet treats @jeffery_khoo

Anh Noel

Claire Denis apologist, lover of insects @anhtiques

Ava Broinowski

Finds a crisis of meaning and a meaning of crisis

Leon Karagic

Solved the trolley problem and knows what it is like to be a bat @leon_karrot

Lizzy Kwok

Enjoyer of thinking and ugly foods @lizzy__430

Nicola Brayan

Wants you to send her photos of your pets @ @__nicola_b__

Edward Gay

Proud owner of SCP-2991 @edwardjgay

Sonal Kamble needs help @cbbgo3

“It must’ve been an angel by my side... @rheasara

Bonnie Huang

...something in me led me to you” @localbonbon

Getting better at baking than Pat

Getting better at baking @p.l.mckenzie

At the cutting edge of asbestos @marlowhurst

Chilli jamming through life @powerfulowler

I love milk @iamnandinosaur

Rhea Thomas

Ariana Haghighi

Nandini Dhir

Patrick McKenzie

Marlow Hurst

Harry Gay

@harry.gay_

Robyn Matthews

USU Brand, Insights & Communications Senior Manager

Madhullikaa Singh Director of Student Publications

Alexander Poirier Director of Student Publications

Sarah Cutter-Russell Inaugural PULP Coordinator

Isla Mowbray Honorary Secretary