PULP: ISSUE 09 2023

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President’s Foreword

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 wil be reflected in the substance and practice of this magazine.

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

Senior Editor’s note Walking across campus the other day, touring the PULP stands, I reflected on how hard the first team worked to grow the magazine. Starting as an idea which seven people gave life to, PULP is continuing to evolve into an iconic publication. To anyone who has ever pitched, contributed, liked, commented, shared, or flicked through PULP’s pages waiting in line at Courtyard Cafe, thank you.

ISSUE 09, our first, has been worked on across cities, countries, and continents. I am honoured to be working alongside Lizzy, Huw, Sonal, Justine, Lameah, and Simon, who share as much of a passion for Eora/Sydney culture as I do. We are fangirls of this city. One day, if there are no more fangirls of so-called Sydney, we have all tragically perished. The team and I are beyond excited to push PULP further into the cultural zeitgeist.

Please stop by the PULP office in the Manning Building any time during our office hours, I would love to meet you!

With love, Kate

Editor’s note

As I write this, not even a month has passed since issue 8 — that leviathan, that MEGA accomplishment of our predecessors — hit stands. Though it feels as if it could have been two thousand years: ‘where is our PULP?’ many cry from outside Manning house, ‘has our favourite Eora-based magazine — professionally printed yet effortlessly underground, accessible yet avant-garde, endlessly humble, impeccable fashion sense, 6’1” — simply abandoned us?’

Much has changed in the passage between editions. Editors are changing. Sydney is changing. A Hollywood Quarter threatens to heighten flat whites rates to the impossible. Sneering petit-bourgeois expeditions along King street have shown automated bartenders the door. A million and one ‘Jonah Hill As Sydney Suburbs’ edits strangle my feed. Has a single thing changed for the better?

Boundless pessimism and endless adoration stewing in my belly prevent me from thinking we could even hold a light to the incredible editorial team who planted the flag for PULP. The eyes that saw monorails deconstructed tell me that nothing truly gets better.

But who cares?

Instead of lamenting over what I don’t know, I’ll tell you what I do: we will be here, we will be writing, designing, filming, animating. We will be camped out in Manning cooking food for thought and food for stomach. That’s a promise.

So please, feast your eyes and mind on the magical experiment that is ISSUE 09. Curse the managerial class to the fiery depths as you explore McDonald’s best-kept secret. Take a class on Sydney’s ill-forgotten Dickens statue. Forget about yourself and find dreams of drag and de’Medici in the pages.

Thank you to all of our contributors – and everyone who pitched – for trusting us with your precious brain kids, even though we might be strangers.

Enjoy ISSUE 09.

Love from Huw, Justine, Lameah, Lizzy, Simon and Sonal

Whydoyoucometovisitmeso often?Youressayisnowover.

Ihavesomanyfondmemories here,inthischair,withyou. Icouldsithereforhoursand talktoyou.Istillhavesomany questionstoaskyou.Thereis stillsomuchIdon’tknow.

YoutalktomeasifIexist.Iam notreal.IamnotCosimo.Iamoil paintonapanel.Imightpresent thelikenessofCosimo,butIam notreallyhim.Thisrelationship youhaveconstructedispurely Parasocial...

PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIP

Words

China Meldrum

I have a with a man from the 16th century

Isnap out of it. I’m sitting on a folding museum chair. The security guard is telling me the gallery closes in 15 minutes. This is not the first nor the last time that this will happen.

Agnolo Bronzino’s Portraitof CosimoIde’MediciinArmour(1545) is nestled into a corner of the Art Gallery of NSW and might be one of my favourite works of art. The portrait was Cosimo’s first commission as the leader of Florence, and instrumental in legitimising his rule: an 18 year old from a separate branch of the Medici lineage, distant to both the respected leadership of the Medici Popes and Cosimo the Great. I first noticed his portrait during a gallery trip for my Intro to Art History course; as everyone flitted around the two gallery rooms, I met Cosimo. As soon as I saw him, I was intrigued. I eventually found a seat and spent a total of five hours writing notes at this portrait. I could already look at Cosimo and know that there was no end to the details I could find. This connection was initially fueled by academic intrigue, but eventually, as I came back to the portrait time and time again, I formed something of a kinship with the young ruler. His steady gaze saw me through my essay, first exam period, a rather troubling retail Christmas season, and three international relations subjects in a single semester (potentially my worst life decision thus far). Needless to say, I formed somewhat of a parasocial relationship with Cosimo.

Undeniably, a 16th century Florentine aristocrat seems an insane target for such a relationship. For a long while, I longed to just really like Harry Styles, or maybe even Wes Anderson, at least something that the normal hip youths do. But whether it’s bucketing down with rain or the sun is burning

my shaved head, I am drawn back to Cosimo. This connection is objectively deranged. PortraitofCosimoIde’ MediciinArmouris one of potentially hundreds of Medici family portraits, that when looked at next to its company in the Art Gallery of NSW isn’t all that special. It doesn’t have the detail and expansiveness of a Bottacelli, nor the physique and stature of a Michelangelo, but I think, and hear me out, this portrait is one of the best guides to 16th century social climbing that a B-List aristocrat could find.

In reality, despite the five century time gap, Cosimo is just a 16th century equivalent to an influencer grasping at straws trying to get that Hello Fresh deal; if Hello Fresh was an endorsement from the non-incestuous branch of the Habsburgs. His turned off pose and disproportionately large shoulders in all their Mannerist glory directly reference a bust of Charles V Habsburg, his only powerful ally. While Cosimo eventually became one of the most powerful and longest reigning leaders from the Medici family, at this moment, he is just an early 20-something who doesn’t really know what is going on. Very relatable to me, an early 20-something who despite being in second year has already made two major degree changes! Sydney Student quivers in fear whenever they see an application come in. But don’t get it twisted, Cosimo was a good social climber. Instead of overt appeals, he used fashion as an artistic language to show his loyalties in a subtle way. In fact, many posit the revenge dress popularised by Princess Di as directly inspired by the impossible shine and polish of Cosimo’s armour (don’t fact check that).

Even though most portraits are dead white guys, it can be fascinating to think about their lives. What toppings would they put on bubble tea? Would they have an active Letterboxd account? Could they run a Depop business? These questions plague me not just with Cosimo, but almost every portrait I see. I have no doubt that wherever I go, I have the potential to find another portrait to form such a

relationship with.

I would like to think about what would happen if I were to meet Cosimo I de’Medici. If he were to walk out of his portrait, would he reveal that it was very much an Austrian armour on top, velvet stockings on the bottom situation, à la zoom during the plague times? If he was to step out and see me, what would he say? What would I say? In many ways, I think we would both be scared of each other. Maybe we would have a chat, he would tell me the still unknown

meaning of the carving he rests his helmet on, and I would show him a Rina Sawayama song. We could have a museum hot chocolate and perhaps I’d finally get some answers. The idyllic fantasy awaits. I’m tapped on the shoulder. The gallery closes in 15 minutes.

Listen up children, move in. See there, there’s some space for you — let’s begin. Huddle like a pack of wolves in the bone-cold Arctic frost.

Canyoualltakeaguessastowhywe mightmakeastatueofsomeone?

We make statues of people we revere, typically white writers of so-called classics or racist slave-traders. These statues are gazed at and adored, passed by and ignored, or sometimes spat on, scandalised and vandalised.

But occasionally, something even more sinister happens to them.

Doesanyoneknowwhattheydidtothe StatueofLibertytotransportit?

It was disassembled and chopped up Mafia-style into 350 pieces. Once transported to New York City, each piece was reunited in a poetic feat of immigrant labour.

It would be scary to split a statue up, that is for sure. The sea is a greedy force, and we are just lucky it wasn’t craving metallic morsels in the late 19th century.

But not all stories of statue dismemberment end up as iconic as Lady Liberty’s. Mr Charles Dickens of Centennial Park fame is the protagonist

of a fading ill-fated tale.

Once upon a time, when smoke first touched clean air and women were institutionalised for hysteria, our very own NSW Premier Sir Henry Parkes dreamed of paying homage to the man responsible for Great Expectations. In effigy form, of course. This dream thwarted the stars, as the author decreed that none of his countrymen should fashion his likeness into statue form.

The accursed statue was carved with marble — very expensive, I know — and stood tall and proud for 80 years. But like any tall poppy, it would soon be cut down. Radicals looking for some fun played a prank on unsuspecting old Dicksy. Charles lost his head, so park officials lost theirs. The headless statue was removed, dismantled, emotionally wrecked and placed in storage: first in Rozelle and later in the Royal Botanic Gardens depot. Eventually, he was lost to the mists of time, and a Charles Dickens Statue diaspora sprawled across Sydney.

Whatwouldyourparentsdoiftheylost you?

Perhaps they would forget about you for 35 years. In 2006, then President of the NSW Dickens Society, Sandra Faulkner, reinvigorated the search. She wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald’s Column 8, begging for a sign. Her prayers fell on deaf ears, until the Sydney Morning Herald republished her request in 2007, with the editor’s compelling call, “We must find Mr Dickens.” A random fellow who would soon become a saviour contacted the newspaper — the worn-down sculpture apparently resided in the backyard of a Wentworth Falls residence. I spoke to the heroic Faulkner herself, who rejoiced, “It was a long search by me for the statue and so

wonderful to see him back in Centennial Park.”

After this raving revelation, there was work to be done if Mr Dickens were ever to stand tall and proud again. Sculptor Paul Thurloe was entrusted with re-carving Mr Dickens’ head, so he desperately sought a marble which matched Dickens’ body.

Not everyone was satisfied with placing a young head on old shoulders. Some experts wanted to deprive Dickens of his head forever to maintain the statue’s integrity, comparing the reconstruction to “giving the Venus de Milo a new pair of arms”. Despite protest, the ‘find him a new head’ school of thought prevailed. The sourcing period took 12 months, and led the architects to the pearl-white town of Carrara, Italy. After three attempts, a suitable piece was seized.

Cananyoneguesshowheavyitwas?

That’s right! The builders selected a 450 kilogram block, from which they carved Dickens’ head, alongside his missing pinkie and writing implements. The reconstructed statue was finally unveiled on February 7, 2011, a date commemorating 199 sun-laps since the author’s birth. The event was well-attended by NSW Governor Marie Bashir, past President Faulkner, Minister for Sport and Recreation Hon Kevin Greene MP and more.

WasIthere?

Why no, I wasn’t. I was probably writing a lesson plan for you ungrateful squirts.

WithgreatgratitudetotheNSWDickensSocietyfortheirassistancewiththis article.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS MADE ME A SATANIST!

Tshadows perverting and manifesting in the horrid form of… Dungeons and Dragons?

friends isn’t all the 80s cracked it up to be. I mean, imagine my disappointment when the game about “cannibalism, blasphemy, and homosexuality” instead turned out to be a group of nerds laughing about a punchbowl for an hour straight; a far cry from the charming, pizzacrusted façade for Satanism that it was sold to me as.

media’s obsession with 80s nostalgia. A worldwide hysteria coloured by thousands of people claiming – in one form or another – that Satanists had abused them in some broad act of fiendish liturgy. These irrational ravings in turn, found their origin through the publication of a book titled

Pazder interviews his wife, Michelle Smith, about her involvement in a series of satanic rituals that successfully summoned Satan. Once he reached the material plane, miraculously, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Michael the Archangel descended from the heavens to banish Satan back to the lake of fire.

evidence of any kind.

Reading through the book on my second monitor now, the work’s narrative is brimming with all manner of these garish claims about the omnipresence of Satanism in everyday life, and it isn’t hard to imagine how this book may have acted as the kindling for this decade-long moral panic.

In turn, following this ill-founded hysteria, the antagonist of our story was made: the Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons group, or B.A.D.D to be short. In the midst of this fervour for Christian perdition, B.A.D.D. made the claim that tabletop role-playing games were secretly a recruitment tool for this Satanic cult. They stated the games implicitly normalised violence, murder, and suicide, allowing for the shadow organisation to enlist these afflicted teenagers into their dark dealings.

And, unfortunately for my He-Man loving, dungeon crawling, heavy metal enjoying Aunt Millie, this didn’t quite bode well for her hobbies and social life. According to her, through the 80s and 90s her community was wracked with conspiracy theories and anxieties about the effect role-playing games were having on her and her friends. Articles from B.A.D.D. claimed they were being drawn into a life of murder, barbarism, and the definitive ubiquitous ire of ‘Satanic Ritual Abuse’. My Aunt, from everything I can imagine, must have come across as their shining textbook example of a teenager at risk of corruption by the maleficence of Dungeons and Dragons.

This organisation held a strong foothold in Australia in the 1980s where they would circulate all kinds of anti-roleplaying game paraphernalia. This manifested as pamphlets, radio-talks and videos across any platform that would have them. They would be signal boosted by organisations such as the CBC, the Australian Federation for Decency, and books such as The Devil’s Web; all designed to highlight and denounce the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Gary Gygax, and their peers, undoing their corruption of the nation’s youth.

This deranged narrative would become the foundation for conspiracies claiming that Satanists had infiltrated and corrupted the world’s legal systems, media, and politicians. My Aunt would describe sitting on the floor in front of her CRTV with her 4 sisters in tow, watching on as one spokesperson or another would announce that apparently, all 5 of them had become part of this nebulous shadow organisation. Arguing that somehow, they had accidentally been facilitating all manner of torture, drug trafficking, and assassinations in the name of the Devil, with their beloved Dungeons and Dragons acting as their initiation into this Satanist sleeper cell life.

Whilst my grandparents never bought into the ramblings of these niche organisations or their figureheads, it’s hard not to note the comedic mileage of having my sweet, nerdy aunt, contrasted against this visage of a malicious cultist and a danger to the world — even if she might look the part from time to time.

Sitting on the floor now surrounded by her first Dungeons and Dragons books — my introduction to role playing games — I reminisce on some of my fondest childhood memories. Hours and hours spent sitting around a table with cheap pizza and soft drinks, goofing off with some dice, friends, and D&D rulebooks. Those friends and memories, in my humble opinion, are the heart of all table-top games. So, as B.A.D.D. would suggest, that must make me a Satanist too. And I don’t think there’s any other way to be.

Words Nathan Phillis

ANATOMISING the

For as long as I can remember, we had four opaque controllers. The grey one had a busted analogue stick which ended up in the pitiful hands of whoever failed to call dibs on one of the functioning controllers. It inhibited any attempt at a left-turn on Mario Kart 64, subscribing you to impending doom on Rainbow Road. The stick was probably haemorrhaged from playing said map. I, like many others, have fond memories of the N64 console.

The Nintendo 64, released in 1996, is shrouded in 3D rendered mystique. The quirky design choices of the console are, I believe, remarkably cutting edge and haven’t really been replicated meaningfully elsewhere. The aesthetics forced us to resign practicality for the sake of beauty. The console was set to become a muse of the vaporwave movement, but in 1996 she didn’t know that yet!

On a mission to restore the console over lockdown, I looked into buying another memory cartridge and some new controllers as my supplies were looking rough, aged and abused.

For the uninitiated, the N64 controller feels as though you’re handling a smoothly contoured pitchfork. The triple-pronged design is fitted with predictable trigger buttons under each index finger, with an out-of-pocket trigger located on the centre prong of the trident. The bop-it anatomy of the controller demands dexterous hand choreography from the beholder.

In my restoration process, I knew I had to invest in the coveted, ice-blue transparent designs. The guts of the machine are revealed to you, hardwired veins enclosed within indifferent plastic. Its organs are compartmentalised. Anatomising the N64 isn’t hard when you can peer into the bottle green motherboard, the nucleus of hypnotic rotating graphics, and the labyrinth that allows you to fire off that blue shell.

Words Amelia Raines

The antique value of the N64, aggregated by the nostalgia-trip value, has led to a lucrative trade of vintage console profiteering. Prophetic individuals who have retained boxed special editions of

the console or their original cartridges are sitting on revenue – with an unboxed copy of Ocarina of Time eclipsing the $200 price point. The frigid cruelty of supply and demand!

Buying second-hand is the way to go, which is what I had to do to replace our lent-out-but-never-returned copy of Goldeneye 64. Who can forget a chiselled Pierce Brosnan’s splashed across the cartridge, arguably the summit of any Bond’s career. Daniel Craig could not have pulled this one off. The soundtrack is comically good, thrusting you through corny espionage as you play through a dubious Cold War backdrop. You direct a first-person Bond through dismantling syndicates in maps that can consist of a solid eight varying textures. At times you don’t know whether to laugh at the heinous aiming controls, or the poorly rendered Lenin statue in the Saint Petersburg mission.

Now that the N64 occupies its own spot on the entertainment unit, it’s been living with a copy of Mario Kart 64 inside it. This game succeeded immeasurably on the sensory front with its hypnosis-inducing graphics and soundtrack. My roommate and I will involuntarily erupt into flirty humming renditions of Moo Moo Farm or Kalimari Desert. Emotions would run high – the

as Conker, a fourth-wall breaking, bingedrinking squirrel, aiding his journey from the pub to see his girlfriend. The game staggers between wry wit and crude comedy – the perfect (hypothetical) cocktail for any precocious child who was able to con their parents into buying them the game.

To complete a level was to retrieve another punchline – you assist a bee in “pollenating” a large-breasted sunflower. Perhaps the game’s legacy has become reductive to its libido, toilet humour, and the ironically juvenile aesthetics, but was quite boundary-pushing by way of graphics and of original narrative. This squirrel has become the artistic muse for thousands of questionable tattoos and many an utterance of “he’s just like me.” An original cartridge of the game will set you back upwards of $300.

The Nintendo 64 promises you a visceral experience, sewn with ritual. Before you fire up the machine, you fix the composite cables into your television. You blow dust out of the cartridge as you would puff on an ageing dandelion. A game protrudes obnoxiously out of the heart of the console. A red light glows.

euphoric yellow star to the desolate failure of hearing the losing music spite your losses. Being one of the first four-player split screen console games, I like to have it on display.

The console hosted a canon of seminal games which set some visceral precedent, particularly on the storytelling front, some which are yet to be matched or surpassed. I couldn’t write this article without mentioning Conker’s Bad Fur Day a darling of the reddit hive-mind. You play

“This squirrel has become the artistic muse for thousands of questionable tattoos and many an utterance of ‘he’s just like me’.”

TWINNING

Walking beneath the artificial tundra of the MYER department store lights, my small six year old stature was dwarfed by the surrounding clothing aisles. I had been separated from my family and was desperately searching for any sign of my siblings among the sea of coat sleeves and flannel shirts. Turning a corner, I see my identical twin brother. Filled with glee, I rushed towards him with open arms, ready to embrace someone I thought I had lost for good. Instead, I slammed face first into what turned out to be a large full-bodied mirror, my head colliding with a thick panel of refracted glass, and with this came a violent awareness of my own self.

I was born on the 29th of May 2000, and my brother Edward was born 20 minutes later. From the moment we were thrust into the world, we were inextricably linked. Where he went I went, what I wore he wore. Obviously, being only children, we were physically bound by the limits of where our Mum took us or what she dressed us in. But what formed was a metaphysical bond, invisible yet strong like gossamer.

Talk to any twin long enough or venture into the dark corners of #twintok and you find shared experiences emerge — the same plot points and canon events that carry across people and shape who they are. The psychology of the twin is rarely discussed, however, and remains absent from a popular culture still recovering from the echoes of Mr Freud and Dr Jung. Consequently, ideas of the mirror self and the double abound, haunting the public imagination.

People assume that because we are twins we must think the same, talk the same, act the same. Recreating the “Come play with us, Danny” scene became a party trick — The Shining being one of the few cultural reference points for twins people could pull from. Creepy children, their synchronicity uncanny to those who have grown up without another soul moving in tandem through life.

Movies about twins often take this poition, of people who have gone through life blissfully unaware there is a doppelganger out there. Films like

TheParentTrap , Enemy , TheDouble and aptlyTwinsfeature narratives of characters who, like the audience, grew up without a twin, and are suddenly given one, having twinness thrust upon them. The same goes with narratives about cloning, with the copy seen as an affront to nature. Or stories of mad scientists meddling with the natural order. They have gone through life with the benefit of building their own sense of individuality, agency and identity, they view themselves as a holistic, unified one.

For the twin, you are never alone, constantly compared to your other half, and painfully aware they are running around somewhere out there. For those with older siblings who attended the same school, you may have had teachers say something along the lines of “you’ve got a lot to live up to”. Instead, Edward and I sat the same tests at the same time, our results directly compared. “Why aren’t you doing as well as your brother?” was a question that we constantly faced, with people assuming we must be getting identical results regardless of our individual lots in life.

“Haveyouguysevergonetoeach other’sjobs/classes/girlfriend’shouses andpretendedtobetheother?”

No/no/gross.

“Whichoneistheevilone?”

Neither.

“Canyoureadeachother’smi-”

Nope.

“Whyisn’tyourbrothermorelikeyou?”

Fuck off.

As twins, you grow up with a constant companion, another you. While at times it may be good, they can be your best friend, your confidant, other times it is suffocating. Most twins yearn for independence once they reach adulthood and are able to move freely about the world, relinquished from the institutional worlds of school and family that shove the two together and force them to compete.

Words Harry Gay

It was only once I was actually in the graveyard, luring my victim (then-date, now-boyfriend) towards me through the power of Facebook Messenger that I thought “Hmm, maybe I am taking this whole goth thing too far.”

But I knew in my heart that the goth identity is, more than anything, a performance. That’s not to say that the trademark dark clothing, music, and worldview don’t appeal to me — they do, but there is something strangely powerful and liberating about the ability to control the way people perceive you.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the goth subculture is female-dominated. By offering a space for participants to express themselves outside of the existing traditional social order, it empowers women by allowing for unmatched sexual agency. It is this freedom of expression that positions goth women to be more than objects of heterosexual desire, as they have been historically perceived to be. They are also desiring subjects, capable of weaponising the gaze that is foisted upon them by turning it outward.

For Maila Nurmi, the pin-up model who transformed herself into a pioneering horror host, expressions of gothic femininity were not only empowering, but strategic. In 1953, Nurmi attended a Halloween party dressed in a costume made of black rags, hand-sewn to emulate the thennameless comic strip character Morticia Addams. In her final interview, only weeks before her death in 2008, she explained the thought process behind her costume: “I wanted to do television,

because that’s where the money was […] I wanted to try to get someone’s attention.”

And it worked. A producer at KABC-TV was so taken by Nurmi’s costume that he spent five months searching for her to offer her a job introducing late-night horror films for Los Angeles’ local station. So, she donned her costume once again. Nurmi made some key changes, and transformed into ‘Vampira’: a persona characterised by long red nails made from melted plastic, high heels, and arched eyebrows. Vampira was ostensibly terrifying, and her beauty was inextricable from this terror; she deliberately melded sensuality with a morbid sensibility that had never before been presented to the public. She was the antithesis of the typical matriarch that reigned in the family comedies of primetime television, and a subversion of the conservative ideals of her time.

“Those people are so obnoxious to me, I’ll satirise them,” Nurmi said. And satirise them she did, at least for a memorable eight months before her show was cancelled. Nurmi was blacklisted from Hollywood in 1955 for refusing to sell the rights to Vampira to her former station who, at that stage, wanted to make The Addams Family TV show.

Out of Vampira’s ashes emerged the next horror host. In 1981, producers from Vampira’s network wanted to revitalise the show. They recruited comedy actress Cassandra Peterson to create a goth character that was raunchier, edgier, and even more shocking than Vampira. Elvira was overtly sexual, and unapologetic about her desires. In the 1988 film Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, it’s clear that Elvira is aware of the power that her beauty holds, but it doesn’t undermine

her sense of agency. Everything Elvira does, including the way she presents herself, is for her only. At every turn, Elvira defies the conventional expectations that society has for her. After all, the film’s plot doesn’t have Elvira stay in the town that has (slowly and begrudgingly) grown to accept her. She gets the hell out and goes to Vegas, because that’s what she wants.

The most popular iteration of the feminist goth goddess is, of course, Morticia. Anjelica Huston’s 1991 portrayal of Morticia was heavily inspired by her predecessors, once again satirising the typical matriarchal figure in a seductively macabre way. Unlike Vampira and Elvira, Morticia is a wife and mother, but it goes without saying that she represents much more than that. She wants it all, and refreshingly, she never asks why she shouldn’t have it. Huston’s Morticia isn’t afraid to ask for anything that she wants, especially when it comes to sex: “Last night you were unhinged. You were like some desperate howling demon. You frightened me. Do it again.” She is perhaps the most sexually liberated of all three of these goth icons, proving that sexual expression can be used as a tool against heteronormativity by positioning women as desiring subjects. More than anything, Morticia is a powerful reminder of how gothic selfexpression is deeply and intrinsically feminist.

So, I admit it: I liked the power. I liked the thought that I was scaring innocent churchgoers and dog-walkers that happened to stumble upon me in the graveyard. I liked performing, and I liked the way that my performance allowed me to gaze back upon a world that — seemingly constantly — forces its gaze upon me. This is how you build Morticia: see the world looking at you, and death stare back.

Words Chloe Atkinson

We’ve long been acquainted with messengers of all kinds: airy voices over the telephone, transient words over text, knotted handwriting inside birthday cards. Messengers play a vital role in acts of communion within the Western imagination, most aptly envisioned through angels. As the intermediaries between gods and men, humanoid iconography of angels haunt corners of our cultural canon: think roundfaced Cupid aiming his bow, perched upon the clouds. Several art movements also reflect this. Adorning the walls of the Art Gallery of New South Wales are vivid illustrations of winged angels with impassive eyes obscured in shadow, robes billowing in wild winds. It’s strange that we prescribe such otherworldly figures with the attributes of mortal men. Perhaps in line with the claim that God created man in His image, man rendered angels in his.

Heavenly Descending 15

Bodies

Lameah Nayeem 16

Across the Abrahamic religions, descriptions of angels share common denominators. They are not made of flesh, but immaterial substances such as blazing fire: the case for seraphim in the Tanakh and Talmud. Though they’ve been described as serpentine on occasion, they typically possess human heads and torsos in visual depictions. Angels in Islam have been portrayed in masculine veneers, dressed in ornate robes and extending “two, or three, or four” multicoloured wings, heralded as mighty beings of blinding light. Perhaps the most familiar are Christian angels, “they had human likeness, but each had four faces, and… four wings”. Pre-enlightenment, human likeness in angels symbolised a theological ideal of humanity, an unreachable paragon of moral perfection.

In 1399, Theophanes the Greek insisted upon the human form before Gabriel’s wings in Icon from the Deesis Tier, highlighting the connection between the human and the angelic. Primarily human figures serve as an eternal touchstone, a narcissistic projection of humanity as God’s purest creation. During the 1600s, Matthew Merian created copperplate engravings to accompany passages of the Old Testament in Frankfurt. Through the crosshatched shading in Chariot vision from the Book of Ezekiel, one can spot a human head among the heads of a lion and eagle in the illustration of a cherub. The hybridisation of the human body, namely the addition of wings, represents the sublime — the kind of transcendence that is not possible with merely two arms and legs. More painstakingly, it represents the yearning to forsake our true nature as creatures of sin.

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The Enlightenment saw the rise and fall of kings, the separation of empires, and years of ecclesiastical thought upturned. The pursuit of reason ushered in considerable changes to how spirituality was depicted. Most striking is John Milton’s description of angels in Paradise Lost, a precursor to the Enlightenment movement. This offered an alternative perception of angels as they were no longer presented as perfect beings. Milton’s angels suffer the same pitfalls as mortal men, often succumbing to hunger and being afflicted with physical pain. They echo the limitations of man in an effort to appear more dimensional.

From 17571827, poet and painter William Blake experienced visions of angelic beings and translated them to watercolour. The first occurred in 1765 when he spied “a tree filled with angels, bright wings bespangling every bough like stars.” His angels are unrelentingly human, take The GoodandEvil Angelsas prime

Rebel Angels Gustave Dore

The Good and Evil Angels William Blake

examples. Both figures are wingless and boast muscular frames as if subjected to hard labour — something that should not exist for them in Paradise. Though they are sexless, their most evocative features are their grim expressions of horror. Here, Blake proposes the possibility that angels, like man, are also the victims of internal moral conflicts. In a note about the painting he claimed, “active evil is better than passive good”, perhaps calling into question the true virtue of beings deprived of free will, fated to remain in servitude to their maker.

As science dominates modern thought, elements of sci-fi have trickled into interpretations of angels. Though pop culture retains the centuries-old imagery of feathered wings and white robes, the advent of New Age religions have pushed the realm of holy beings into the extraterrestrial. Some New Age movements revere alien civilisations, such as the Arcturians, as quasi-divine beings.

The imagery associated with extraterrestrials is distinctly neofuturistic in its utilisation of geometry and shape language. The 1995 anime Neon Genesis Evangelion embodies the stark aesthetic contrast which sets it apart from earlier illustrations of angels. Despite drawing inspiration from the Dead Sea Scrolls, angelic beings are positioned as enemies of humanity, somewhat parallel to the rising secularism and scepticism in the late 20th century.

Among the seventeen angels in the show, three in particular embody the visual ethos of futuristic — and sometimes borderline absurd — design. Ramiel, named after the angel of thunder, is sinister in its simplicity with its sleek, octahedron shape of overwhelming size. It has the ability to fold outwards to morph into various origami-like shapes, betraying previous design ideologies that dictated angels demand anthropomorphism. Sahaiquel continues this thought. Translating to “Ingenuity of God”, the figure’s design draws more inspiration from biological processes than geometric figures. It resembles a disfigured eye, its odd shape not unlike an amoeba, and its ability to divide into smaller organisms mirrors binary fission. Armisael, the penultimate angel in the series, is markedly more abstract, appearing first as the double-helix of human DNA before transforming into a writhing string-like entity. The increasingly bizarre designs signal a divorce between angels and humanity, a firm rebuttal against any metaphysical connection between the two.

The angel’s strange designs reveal a more poignant purpose. Director Hideaki Anno subverts the role of angels to explore the amorphous nature of “enemies” as a whole. During a period of social and economic turmoil in Japan that had no identifiable causes, the definition of what constituted an “enemy” had reached its vanishing point. This seems to be a larger symptom of a secularist society: conflicts and quandaries can no longer be immediately understood through a theological lens. As a consequence, our understanding of these issues become far more ambiguous, as do our visual representations of them.

Many things change across time; many things remain stagnant. Our angels do both. In the landscape of religious art, the depiction of angels continues to reveal glimpses into the divine realm and the nature of humanity. As modernity forces us to innovate tried ideas, I can’t help but wonder, what will they become in the future? And what will become of us?

Armisael Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ramiel Neon Genesis Evangelion

Let the light around you shine brighter, let it encapsulate you. What do you see? Where does it take you?

The light took me to the middle of a wispy hill at Seven Hills to commemorate the full moon, an entity shining in its full glory waiting to be celebrated. I am a lover of the moon, and even though I do not worship it officially, its patterns intrigue the novice astrologer in me.

I grew up in a strict Muslim family that flinched at the devil motifs in Harry Potter and thought of Sabrina the Witch as a queer deviant (laughs in gay). My defiance showed in acts like reading tarot cards, creating astrology clubs in school, and thirsting over hypersexualised witchy characters in the media. But real-life paganism is beyond the blood, drama, and telekinetic miracles on television and rooted in natural connection to the Earth’s seasons.

Paganism is an umbrella term for nature-based religious practices that use seasonal and moon cycles as symbols for their worship. It overlaps with Wicca, a practice of modern witchcraft publicised by Gerald Gardner in the 1950s, revering nature-based spiritualities and pre-Christian practices. Wiccans follow a Wheel of the Year, marking different sabbats, seasons that define the movement of the sun and the moon.

Sylvia, the organiser of a Greater Western Sydney Wiccan group, walked me to the altar during my first ritual. Her black robes and knowledgeable smile complemented the orange hues of the

moon and, in my head, we were stirring a cauldron of moss potion. We stood against a humble yet potent setting of a shrine, cauldron, incense, and food offering for the deities. I was just a child of nature’s prowess.

The ritual commenced with acknowledging the Dharug people of the land, after which we took rounds of the circle and soaked in the familiarity of the land we stood on. We raised our hands towards each quarter: earth to the north, fire to the south, water to the west and air to the east.

The circle is cast. We are in the space between the worlds where time and space cease to exist.

The blurring of time and space is not foreign to other religions, let alone Islam. When you are on the Jaa-e-namaz (prayer mat) or winding through a tasbih (prayer beads), you are transported into a space filled with light, focusing solely on Allah and his mightiness over the world. Looking up to deities and providing them offerings is shirk (polytheism), but nature nevertheless plays an important role in Islamic traditions. Water’s wrathfulness is illustrated in the Quran through the story of Prophet Nuh’s ark being consumed by the sea and the signs of akhirah (end times) displayed through catastrophic climate change.

Connecting with nature as a form of worship on a burning planet can be a tumultuous task. How do you honour the water bodies when they are so polluted? Can we still feel nourished breathing the air that gets increasingly sooty? For Julie Brett, a writer and teacher of Australian Druidry, connecting with nature is “a practice of joy.” Following the Anglo-Celtic practice of Druidry requires living by the natural philosophy of going out and seeping in what nature’s seasonal and agricultural cycle is trying to communicate in the moment.

Practising paganism on Indigenous land requires sentience about people’s traditional connections to the land. Things like the Djangawwul song cycles comprise songs curated by ancestral beings who made all the natural territory on this land. Indigenous people also use dreaming as a form of humanising nature and their connection to it as they navigate through the world. Western witchcraft practices, however, can play a complicit role in

Uncloaking witc Paganism as

obliterating First Nations people’s totems and magical practices they have inherited over the years. By associating magic solely with British and Celtic traditions, we risk claiming spiritual prowess on stolen land.

Gemma Lucy Smart, a sessional academic at The University of Sydney, grew up finding paganism, at the time, offered what she already believed in: the sanctity of nature. “Connection with nature is what makes us who we are and that should be fostered,” believes Lucy Smart. She calls her practices “banal” and said that they are not the “supernatural, hard to understand practices” that everyone associates with paganism. She mainly focuses on meditation which is about “feeling into the physical body that I am in and noticing the environment that I am in.”

Modern-day paganism is more eclectic than traditional, meaning it takes inspiration from different spiritual practices. Lucy Smart’s altar at home consists of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, Norse goddess Freyja and an empress tarot card with pregnant women. Her practice is not restricted to deities but she takes a deep interest in the tenets of Jainism, a religion that believes in connection with non-human entities as miniscule as microbes. Being a witch comes naturally to her Anglo-Celtic heritage. By taking inspiration from the power and teachings of other cultural followings, paganist practices strengthen their acknowledgement of non-western natural thinking.

Close your eyes and feel the grass of this hill beneath you. Transfer all your energy on to the land and block out the noises of Seven Hills surrounding you.

David, our ritual leader and the founder of Pagan Awareness Network, guided us through meditation. Meditative practices in pagan rituals open imaginative worlds – creating scenarios in a world drastically different from your own but still reflective of your position in life. All the Lunar deities, from Artemis, Hecate, Luna to Kabigat, Chieng Xi and Maya, took over the 25-minutes of silence in our minds.Islam views any sort of magical thinking as an antithesis to one’s commitment to Allah, considering it as an association with Djinns (the evil). Growing up, I heard stories about aunts who were physically unclean, involved in black magic, and possessed by evil forces that tried to ruin the holy sanctity of our home. They were insane pariahs who needed to be taken to a mufti (priest) or dargahs (shrines) to be treated. I was in an internal altercation with myself – was I hysterical? Would I get possessed? Was my body now unholy?

Open your eyes and let the sounds of Seven Hills enter you again. Energy is flowing in all quarters and they are with you.

After the ritual, I call David to ask for interpretations of what I see. My parents would have hated this because I am confiding in an entity that is not Allah. David tells me that purple and violet hues of light usually hint at self-consciousness; that feels like a positive reading. We ended the night with cake and ale by offering arrowroot biscuits and juice to the gods. It is a form of expressing gratefulness towards them by consuming a bit of it and spreading the rest on the ground. Crumbs of the biscuit fell onto the grass and the juice trickled slowly within me as the moon got only brighter. This was another fitnah in the eyes of my parents but that day I was just a novice witch bathing in lunar greatness.

Words Misbah Ansari

hcraft: exploring a Muslim

tape-eater

like a constantly changing sky singing its gliding melodies of colour through pillowy obfuscations, a thought can only break through and reflect in a mind that’s equally as clear as it is conflicted.

no cataracts, no confusion, nothing but clear-cut contemplation.

once it meanders past those careful clouds, it becomes conscious of more than itself. but is there really more to it?

always so ready to simultaneously dismiss and affirm the notion; a paradox of perception and perspective both pleases and pains.

the cosmos beyond that’s inconceivably far somehow invokes the same feelings as dreams that are inconceivably close to you.

the expanding infinite external and the ephemeral finite internal. the illusion of self; a chameleon-like ouroboros of vague fleeting impressions,

a hungry tape-eater that carves the very memories of consumption.

may not be a perfect preservation but rather can be a perfect reflector, not into who you were, but what you are.

(keep forgetting to close your parenthesis. open ended, boundlessly closed inside and let loose uncomplete.

a vague regret

corrodes your recollection like magnetic tape melting in the blistering sun.

cooked in the heat and ready to eat.

tape-eater

missed opportunity possesses another cloudy day further obscured by the dusty balcony door and eyes that can’t be bothered to open any wider.

a feeling of freedom. the metallic taste of what is to come accompanied by bitterness.

continue on your aimless walk at a pace that aches within minutes.

meaning with a form or mere form without a meaning?

// absence of meaning construed as meaning? what it is to become a dream. don’t worry, i’ll close it for you.)

a picture forms, and suddenly i’m where you used to be.

an apology baseless becomes cobwebs collecting decaying dust expressing empathetic fauxfaithful good grace hardly healing the illness in jarring jest.] it eludes you!

Words Leon Karagic

[escapes far away at a dilated distance with swift speed]

when you appeared in my dreams,

I thought I saw you in the field.

Photos Bonnie Huang

This photo series explores the fluid deception of our desires and memories. An ode to past relationships and the ghostly apparitions of memories that are ever present as time goes on. The ephemeral and intangible nature of desire is a pervading force that seductively dances with our memories. Here, the natural landscape and vast leafy field is a dark unknown where the potential of the future and memories of the past meet.

DEFINITION OF MAN Words

Joseph John Kagsawa

Man is the dust and dust is the flesh, This commandment that has Waxed itself in the minds of men Has fossilised into the monsters of today. The albularyo runs her calloused hands through My back, millennia sleeping in her wrinkles, I ask her how old she is and she says that “I saw the first man spring from the bamboo” And my lungs full of phlegm and pollution Cough up a childlike chuckle.

I find myself standing in my bedroom, Armed with nothing but bum bag and asthma puffer, Full of unspoken fury yet losing all challenge and desire, I am imprisoned in my reflection, My mirror is my mausoleum, My voice reduced to a gasp in the wilderness, Ectoplasm oozing from the screen, Bodies reduced to light, Finding myself refracted into a million pixels And distributed across all public consciousness. There are too many of my kind, I reproduce infinitely: Invading public space, Videos, posts, comment sections, Taking jobs, real estate, seats at public transport, I am a danger to society, my history is your criminal record, I am terror, peril, and spectre, all at once.

It’s why people can’t stand to look at me, I am golden like the sun, It’s why people can’t stand to look at me, I am a bright kid, It’s why people can’t stand to look at me, I am unpronounceable, It’s why people can’t stand to look at me, I am invisible and incorporeal, I float through ceilings, It’s why people can’t stand to look at me.

I am Western Sydney’s Leslie Cheung, I am a blusher, I quiver at a man’s touch, I am a flamboyant boy, I bat my long eyelashes, I am a fashionable gay, an androgynous king, I am a man of the screen, emotionally vulnerable, I am a household name, a queer of many roles, I am a debutant, I will wear my red high heels, I am a superstar, I will have an asteroid named after me, I am artifice, I have a colonial name, I am submissive, I long to fly from high-end hotels; I am Australia’s Yukio Mishima, I am a brawler, I explode at a man’s touch, I am a withdrawn man, I keep my shoulders wide, I am a modest digger, working-class and proud of it, I am a man of the sword, emotionally unavailable, I am a nobody, yet I am every passing pedestrian, I am a veteran, I will wear my khaki jhodpurs, I am a radical, I will have a militia built around me, I am artifice, I have a pen name, I am dominant, I long to die in battles of my own choosing; Man is the ghost and ghost is the man.

Man is a product formulated in entrepreneurial suburbia, Man is a gift preserved in ziplock bags, Man is a rare earth mineral extracted by nonwhite child miners, Man is a network of copper-wire capillaries, Man is a unit of imagined digital currency, Man is a light-emitting diode, flickering in their manufactured billions, Man is a prisoner of the screen, Man is the pixel and pixel is the flesh.

From his royal court, Handyong buries his hands in his face. "All the monsters have been slain. How can men prove themselves to be men now?" And wept wordlessly into obscurity. We are orphans of no great nation, no great narrative, Baptised in oil spills, fed with the eucharist of roadkill, Confessionals are claustrophobic, families are unaffordable, Every bum and sinner is mourning the passing of an era, Man is the monster and monster is the man.

No, it all must be wrong. A man proves himself Not by action, great deeds Or martyrdom. Man becomes man When man is free

To become nothing, Nothing at all.

Let my coffin of bamboo burn to dust. My body waits for no ghost.

futurism33

Sandstone Futurism is a hyperstitional architecture. It began to emerge 250 million years ago, sung in golden whorls beneath insipid beds. The project shall never be fulfilled, perpetually seeking its own end in discordant assemblages. Yet its potential may be glimpsed in Sydney’s current urban redevelopment projects. Sandstone Futurism is neither a proposal, nor a hypothetical solution, but rather, an inevitable utilisation of our environment. Divorced from periodisation, this is an ideal that has been equally expressed in fluted columns, Neo-Gothic spires, and suburban flagstones. However organic this impulse may be, it has been suppressed as much as it has been celebrated.

Essentially, Sandstone Futurism is an inclination towards difference. Its significance extends beyond Sydney, demonstrating how the futures we design for ourselves can become grounded in placehood. In our ceaselessly churning network of centres, a speculative pluralism emerges; resisting homogenisation by seeking necessity.

Sydney Basin Hawkesbury Sandstone (‘yellow gold’) forms the bedrock for much of the Sydney region. The porous sediment lies shallow beneath the earth, barren of nutrients. These conditions have required adaptability, fostering a unique relationship to the landscape. Prior to colonisation, sandstone was foundational to daily life, relied upon for shelter, carving, ochre, and grinding tools. During early settlement, it was initially despised for its hindrance to farming, yet soon found favour amongst masons for its abundance, hardness, and durability. Despite seeking to impose Western architecture upon the region, these buildings retained an accidental connection to their landscape. No trefoil, buttress, or fleur de lis could evade its own weathered patterning. The Classicised facade of our State Library, then, owes more to Pyrmont than Rome.

Sandstone Futurism was thus born out of circumstance. In the 19th century, land grants, free trade, and population growth increased the demand for urban development. The three most productive quarries in Sydney Cove were rightfully labeled ‘Paradise’ ‘Purgatory’ and ‘Hellhole’. In retrospect, the ecological impact of this site was devastating, causing pollution, destroying habitats, and altering the landform.

In the 1920s, Chicago architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney Griffin reconsidered Sydney sandstone’s potential beyond imitation or revival. Their various projects utilised the material as an expression of its native environment. They proposed an urbanity in which there were “no fences, no boundaries, no red roofs to spoil the Australian landscape”. At the same time, local sandstone quarries were becoming depleted, and the stone now testified to a pre-federation Anglophilia.

“Your domes dream of Constantinople; Facade picturesque; Stained glass that glowed like an opal. Sydney Romanesque.”

Barry Humphries, 1971

By the 1950s, plans were even suggested to demolish the Queen Victoria Building in favour of a car park. This multi-decade lull in sandstone architecture paved the way for a new cosmopolitanism, installing what I perceive as the ‘Darling Harbour vibe’ which reigned until the end of the century. Exemplified by skyscrapers, Sega World, and the Monorail, this direction was accelerated by the arrival of Sydney 2000. Here, tinted glass panes reflected a city refusing to play itself. A global hub, a deliberate abstraction, camouflaged as the generic backdrop of films like The Matrix.

Something began to shift halfway through the 2010s. A sudden wave of redevelopment inspired a new vernacular. I began to notice this last year during Rīvus, the 23rd Sydney Biennale. One of its venues was The Cutaway, a grand underground cavern beneath Barangaroo Reserve, carved into the sandstone headland. The Cutaway is by no means a spectacle of urban planning, and its aims to facilitate an Indigenous cultural centre was scrapped in 2021. However, its regeneration seemed to define this ‘shift’; an architecture seeking to monumentalise its own environment, lurking beneath the barren earth. A Sydney which romanticises itself, refusing to reflect its present in the sun-glinted panes of progress. The entire project of Barangaroo is underscored by artifice, evidenced by the reconstruction of a hypothetical pre-1836 shoreline. Yet the plan at least strives toward a relationship with its context.

Exiting the platform at Sydney’s Central Station last night, I found myself elsewhere: a sleek white oversail cascades into tessellated sandstone, underlit escalators serenade my arrival, segueing into the more familiar setting of Grand Concourse. This renovation belongs to a larger $11 billion dollar project across 24 surrounding hectares, which aims to ‘heal’ the suburb by 2026. The latest phase of the project is headed by Woods-Baggot. As in The Cutaway, this is architecture tending towards excavation rather than construction. Sandstone Futurism requires inversion — a potentiality unburied from geological time. Sandstone Futurism manifests as an enfolding of the past within the present.

When the Powerhouse Museum’s renovation was announced in December 2022, it was overshadowed by the opening of the Sydney Modern Project, an entirely new building at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Here, stepped pavilions descend the landscape at offset angles, as if to obey its contours. Seen from above, each boxy rooftop contains its own terrace garden, tiered like tidal pools as they undulate eastward. The entire project here is exemplified by a 250m rammed-earth wall, sampling regional types of sandstone from across NSW. John Jeffrey, senior associate at Architectus said, “this building could only be in Sydney” and he’s right. At both Sydney Modern and the Powerhouse Museum, we see a layering of historical, geological, and cultural topologies.

Against the Googie-washed tomorrowlands of yesterday, difference has arrived. I attempted to resist historicising this Sydney-centric contemporaneity, yet I couldn’t. I’m not intending to dissect the socio-political implications of these development plans within post-Colonial discourse. This matters so intensely because it doesn’t at all. Sydney’s relevance is predicated upon lack. Even as notions of ‘scene’ become re-territorialised, Sydney evidently fails to qualify. Yet the city still seeks to play itself.

I yearn for a universalism expressed in the particular, futurity localised around multiple vortices: boundless sovereignty hailed in solar-paneled yurts, pagodas scaled by hydroponic farms, heat-pumped byre-dwellings. Until now, it had been uncertain how this relationship between necessity and place might be articulated in Sydney. But something is changing.

“Exiting the platform at Sydney’s Central Station last night, I find myself elsewhere.”

“Letters”. The Sydney Morning Herald. 1 February 1938

“It Is doubtful if any country In the world has a building stone more perfectly suited for church building than our Sydney sandstone, even for the most delicate and intricate tracery.”

39 Drag

Photography Bipasha Chakraborty

Models:

Amyl - @amyl.com.au

Barbi Ghanoush - @barbi.ghanoush

Cassandra - @cassandrathequeen_

Manish Interest - @manish.interest

Papi Chulo - @nati_daddy

Drag is Art. Much of queer liberation is built on the backbones of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, yet often go miscredited. In these images, I wanted to celebrate and capture the allure and power of BIPOC creatives, particularly drag kings and queens.

This series of photographs places drag artists in the everyday realm – from convenience stores to adult shops – capturing their glamour even through the most mundane of activities. Drag is a creative art form that I have admired for ages, and with the scene becoming more diverse, it’s exciting and enthralling to see the intersection of culture and queerness front and centre stage.

Drag has helped me understand my identity in ways that had been out of reach in the past: in terms of gender, it’s helped me learn that I’m able to float around in a way that feels organic; and the chance to wear certain wigs has allowed me to feel more in touch with my culture. Doing drag as a person of colour in a city whose drag scene isn’t touted for its diversity is, in its own way, quite special. It feels powerful to disrupt the racial monotony that has taken a hold of the community, and it’s inspiring to play a part in creating a world where someone can go to a drag show and always see a performer who looks like them. Amyl, pictured right.

is Art.

Cassandra @cassandrathequeen_ (pictured left)

Drag is a way for me to explore and express my gender identity and artistry. I also take drag as a mirror of my life and the people around me. I want to take inspiration from the stories, experiences, and emotions of

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Manish Interest @manish.interest (pictured right)

Drag is a way for me to connect my culture to my queer identity. I was the first Sri Lankan queer person I ever knew of and kind of had to be my own representation as a result. Being able to be my authentic self in drag and bring things like Bharathanatyam into it means I get to be that representation for other people and show there’s nothing shameful or wrong with being LGBTQ+ and Tamil. Being Manish is the only time I don’t feel too brown to be gay or too gay to be brown, I just feel like me.

Papi Chulo - @nati_daddy

Drag King for me has always been a multi-disciplinary art form, because you truly can do anything you want as a Drag King. The art form is so vast and elevated that it often strays so far from “mainstream Drag,” because we don’t fit neatly into a little box. Drag to me is the ultimate gender performance, that can often transform into genuine gender expression. As a BIPOC performer I still often feel that I have to work twice as hard and as long to achieve the same level of recognition as white artists. Still, even when it comes it remains to be tokenistic, and this is why I focus on making my own art and events that highlight purely BIPOC creatives. See @_gagevents / @thanksfor_ havingme

Ihave lived in NSW for three years and the furthest inland I’ve explored the state is just beyond the Blue Mountains. Much the same as my peers, I had dreams of a summer holiday: visiting my friends in Brunei, or partying on a boat in Croatia. Getting out of the dreary cold would have been fantastic, but I couldn’t seem to motivate myself to plan my midyear break, not to mention I could hardly afford a Euro-summer.

New Self Wales

Words Kate Saap

I was exhausted by the first half of the year. My life changed so much in six months that I forgot to slow down, and my mind got quite noisy. I didn’t allow myself the time to grieve the loss of my grandfather, the break down of my long term relationship, and a thousand other things. The easiest and most affordable way to escape the city was to drive away from it all: the solo road trip. The picture was poignant in my mind. How perfect the metaphor worked. For a few days, it would be me, my thoughts, and the open road.

I settled on travelling inland, to have the headspace to reflect inwards. Lucky for me, there’s nothing but space in the country. We are all familiar with the female solo traveller archetype: she goes somewhere new to rediscover herself when her life in the big smoke gets too overwhelming, often learning that she had what she needed all along: herself (and a European meet-cute). I was going to need to do some Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love (2010) level romanticising if this were to work. Except I didn’t even know what I needed to search for.

I wanted to see if it were true that solitude brings self-discovery. How dramatic.

I set off on the Hume Highway, the promise of the country’s best shepherd’s pie awaiting me at Trappers Bakery. That was the only place I planned on visiting, everything else I saw to fill the time between checking out of one hostel and arriving at the next town. Besides, of course, a crucial stop at Yass on the way to Gundagai. I got the postcard to prove it: I have officially been Yass-ified.

Naturally, I had a presumption as to what I would find in rural NSW on my trip. Definitely lots of farm animals; it was cow, sheep, and horse galore. However, when you’re road tripping alone there’s no one else in the car to be on animal-pointingout duty. I had to drive and say “cow”, “sheep”, or “horse” to no one in particular.

It was miserable weather most days, either drizzling or just about to. Living up to the cliché, the pathetic fallacy really did affect my mood, I still felt disconnected. I hadn’t spoken to anyone for hours between Culcairn and Ando, so wrapped up in my own thoughts of impending doom that I almost slipped off the Alpine Way through the mountains into Kosciuszko National Park.

than two minutes; I was stuck talking to myself, and had no one to contradict the delusion. I felt isolated. Don’t get me wrong, I can deal with no phone service and no TV, but that’s normally surrounded by other people. I had a massive freak out. I made sure to send my sister my address, phoned as many people as I could, and when I eventually decided to go to bed, I set an alarm every three hours to make sure no one had taken me in the night. On reflection, it was probably that I was very cold and so bored of my own thoughts that I imagined someone would murder me, for entertainment’s sake.

I left a day early and had my epiphany on the way to Kiama: I can’t be more than an hour away from the coast all by myself ever again. That was the selfdiscovery.

Maybe it’s possible that I was my own problem all along? Aside from the fact that I need to go to therapy again, I could feel a revelation brewing. The Sydney sulk followed me to the country. I was determined to bury it on a farm somewhere with no tombstone.

That place ended up being around my last stop. I had booked a stay in an old shearer’s cottage on a property outside Mt Cooper for three nights, my final place of relaxation. Except I did not relax. In fact, I convinced myself I would not make it home from there.

It was all idyllic on paper, with no other people for miles, my own fireplace, and a gorgeous view of the sprawling hills of the Snowy Monaro. However, I had been alone for a week without holding a conversation with another person longer

Photos Justine Hu ModelIsabel Vandine-Judge

Everyone agreed that the day was just right for the picnic to Hanging Rock – a shimmering summer morning warm and still, with cicadas shrilling all through breakfast from the loquat trees outside the dining room windows and bees murmuring above the pansies bordering the drive. Heavy-headed dahlias flamed and drooped in the immaculate flowerbeds, the well-trimmed lawns steamed under the mounting sun.

Let’s pretend...

- Picnic at Hanging Rock

On a sunny Friday afternoon, I saw my childhood best friend Isabel for the first time in about two years, having not seen each other for years prior to that. From the age of five, to now nearing two decades, we’ve shared laughter, our problems, ourselves – not a single thing has changed. We found ourselves in the grasslands of Centennial Park discussing the vision: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola for Marc Jacobs, pre2016 Mitski, and any other iteration of suburban girlhood we could think of amidst our own conversation of gossip and insecurities and reassurances.

We had begun this shoot with the intent of capturing the Australian experience of growing up. It instead unfurled to become a capsule of girlhood; of memory and reliving the nostalgia of a youth long gone, yet still held like a pearl in the palm of our hands, passed between each other and leaving a permanent shimmer where it touched our skin. Our girlhood is both ephemeral and enduring: I am not a person but I will always be a girl. Sweetness and bitterness, like a ripe grapefruit in the summer. To be unrelentingly understanding, yearning for connection, our stems rising to face the sun and intertwining like ropes choking and supporting until we can reach out our petalled hands and touch that distant star. Both the muse and the architect, building beautiful sculptures out of anxiety and hope – I think we are all girls after all.

On that Friday afternoon, we revisited those shy little girls that met for the first time, we revisited those shy little girls that met for the first time, tangled hair from climbing trees and crayon smeared hands that reached out to hold, toothless grins whispering “Let’s pretend...” We wonder if we’ve made them happy, if we grew up too fast… or if we never grew up at all.

before winter silences the humming forests kings and commoners pray maytherebeenough. like a steady tide rising above the trees they swallow paths and strip mountains of their green mane. the icy ground shivers without its rustling coat picked bare of their roots, the sprouts, the seeds scarcely a weed left for lazy grasshoppers. stolen by hungry mouths the contraband are handled deftly by milky hands gloved in red chilli flakes. with the precision of gutting a man the women carve and cleave the greens treating their wounds with salt soaking their treasures in scarlet brine and stroking each leaf till they fall asleep.

53

soon a king’s banquet will grace the lowly 상 filled with offerings from the mountains to the streams: glazed cubes of potatoes, perilla leaves drowned in soy with lustrous glass noodles peppered by black fungi and sesame seeds. red paints radishes, cabbages, chives engulfing plates and lingering on the tongue. molten amber is sealed inside eggshells it simmers and bides as each jewel fights to colour the rice but the crisp white must erode against the waves of red broth.

the mountains will bare themselves and our hands will receive; as long as the mountains provide our tables will be plenty.

Words Clare Gim

When I studied in Mainland China during my gap year, I ate at the 食堂 (shitang - canteen) almost every day. Sometimes, for three meals a day: glutinous steamed corn and fried dough sticks for breakfast, duck blood soup noodles for lunch, and tomato egg stir fry with rice for dinner. Hundreds of us would congregate in the canteen at once, efficiently hurried along the production line within minutes.

Eating at the canteen quickly became an important ritual for me. Even when I lived at home, the daily rhythm of eating at the dining table together no longer required such strict adherence as it did throughout my childhood. Many of us prefer to eat before our laptops, standing in the kitchen, or on the couch in the loving company of Troy and Abed from Community. But without family to gather at the dining table with, the canteen was sacred, existing purely as a space to enjoy food with others.

The Chinese campus canteen is a humble place, but in many ways, it feels like a luxury. In Sydney, to enjoy three meals a day for under 10 dollars is an impossibility. It’s as far-fetched as renting a studio in the Inner West as a casual worker. Of course, the two cities couldn’t be more different. In Nanjing, most students live on campus. For international students, this could entail a spacious studio, accompanied by a kitchen and even a balcony. Domestic students, on the other hand, are relegated to a six-person room, or if you were lucky, only four of you would compete for the best bunk. Regardless, most students relied on the canteen for their livelihoods, which was still significantly cheaper than eating out at restaurants or even cooking for yourself.

Photos Emily Kwok

On the Chinese campus canteen 53

In 1950s China, communal canteens were established with the intention of reflecting an ideal communist society: one where workers ate together and lived a communal life. Family friends recalled their university days of the 80s, when there were no chairs in the canteen so they would eat standing or squatting outside in the campus light. Rice and mantou (steamed buns) were staples, and to be full was to be filled with joie de vivre.

Now, students are spoilt for choice. Alwinar, an international student at Nanjing Normal University, told me that when she first moved to Nanjing, she was shocked by the variety of choice she had on campus canteens. In her home country of Dominica, universities typically served one type of dish every day. Chinese universities such as Beijing’s Tsinghua are notorious for housing 16 canteens, including a fully Halal option. The Zijing canteen boasts 5 floors alone, featuring all of China’s 8 cuisines: Cantonese roast duck, Huaiyang braised pork belly, and Sichuan spicy fish, all at the tip of your tongue.

Naturally, choosing which canteen to frequent was no light matter. My friends and I would often argue about which canteen served the best soy milk and malatang, though we’d likely resort to the closest one anyways. In 2014, a third-year at Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology created a viral 吃货地图 (chihuo tiantang - foodie’s map). Li Zhongmei indulged her way through the university’s 33 canteens, interviewing classmates and teachers to determine the best dishes served by each canteen. “民以食

为天，华科大不但食堂很多，而且各有特色,” she wrote on the map, roughly meaning “food is of paramount importance to the people, not only are there many canteens at this university, each of them have their own specialties.” Nearly a decade has passed, and Li’s map still serves as a much-needed culinary compass on campus today.

The Chinese campus canteen has become a breeding ground for pontification. All over 抖音(douyin - Chinese Tiktok) and news are rife debates over whose canteens reign supreme: Tsinghua or Peking? Are they even the best canteens in China? Or is it Yunan University with their rose-topped desserts and luxurious rice noodles? Nanjing’s University of Aeronautics and Astronautics for their “intergalactic” themed canteens? Or maybe the crown belongs to China’s Agricultural University, home to several farms, as well as its own potato and lamb food festivals.

With the senior 高考(Gaokao) exams being such a stressful experience, many netizens are encouraging students to consider canteens first when contemplating where to attend university. Of course, these calls are not serious in the slightest, but interestingly, according to a public opinion survey conducted by the forum website Zhihu, the best canteen food is concentrated in China’s most academic and traditionally elite universities anyways, such as Peking and Shanghai’s Tongji University. With Chinese universities being strictly bound by the country’s 户口 system (hukou - household registration), which sets quotas on the number of applicants that may be admitted from each province, perhaps even the best canteen food continues to be a privilege reserved for the country’s rich and highly educated urban inhabitants.

It is no question that the canteen is central to the Chinese campus experience. Whilst it is difficult to say that every student has skipped class or pulled an all-nighter, what can be said is that every student has experienced the frustration of waiting in a long line after class for food, and the eager anticipation for next week’s menu.

Canteens around the world have drawn an unfair reputation for their allegedly poor hygiene and quality of food. Time and time again, we see dismissive and trite representations of the canteen in popular media. But I continue to be mesmerised by how much a small team of chefs (often women) are able to feed schools and universities every day. The Chinese campus canteen is an overlooked institution, providing sustenance and representing the deep-rooted tradition of communal eating. All I can say is that every time I spend 12 dollars for a dry tofu banh mi at Taste, I think of the canteen.

THE DARK ECONOMY

Would you believe me if I told you that McDonald’s prints its own currency? It sounds ridiculous, but anyone who has worked at Maccas knows that the corporate giant holds many dark secrets. For example, on the 5th of May in 2009 the skeletal remains of the Hamburgler were discovered underneath the frozen coke machine in George St McDonald’s. He had been strangled to death, and Ronald’s fingerprints were all over the crime scene. Okay, but seriously, for any 14 year old whose first job lay beneath the golden arches, it goes without saying that the work is exploitative. It’s a revolving door of bright eyed impressionable teens eager to start earning their own Patterson’s, only to discover the horrible truth that making money requires you to mop up a child’s vomit on your first day and deep fry your own hand on the second, all while the managers play Candy Crush in their Panopticon office lined with security monitors. Welcome to capitalism, where managers berate you for making your own lunch instead of paying for it. Enjoying the fruits of your labor? Not on our watch!

Fun fact: the paper cups that contain your drink cost more than the drink itself. And that Sprite you’re drinking? It comes from a plastic bag. The soft serve? It comes from a plastic bag. The nuggets, the quarter pounders, the onions? Plastic bag. One can only imagine the skyscraper slaughterhouse from which these processed meats emanate from. But if that cooked sludge wasn’t consumed within twenty minutes, it would be scrapped. Apparently Maccas has enough money to waste food, but not enough to provide free food or 10 minute paid rest breaks, what a joke. Another fun fact: those blaring alarms that you hear all the time? They don’t mean anything. Sure, if some nuggets have finished frying, of course there needs to be an alarm, but every 5 minutes the deep fryer would start beeping to say “stand by”, as if to classically condition us like Pavlov’s dog. I still get nightmares about those beeps and the seemingly endless stress of the lunch rush. There’d be times

OF MCBUCKS

where I’d get so angry on shift that I’d walk into the freezer to start punching the fry boxes, a nice reprieve from the hotboxed sauna of the kitchen. A younger member of staff told me a secret to surviving the boiling summer shifts: we would fold up a paper towel, run it under cold water, let it freeze in the walk-in, and slip it under our caps (or in our underwear) while we made cheese burgers. Good times. The best thing about working in hospitality are the other chefs. It’s like making friends in the trenches. The managers are not your friends however. They are merely a cabal of brown noses fixated on maintaining the upward trajectory of a line on a graph, all the while ignoring the struggles of the staff they are meant to protect. But every once in a while, they would offer a hollow gesture of compassion. This is where the McBucks come in, the secret economy that McDonald’s doesn’t want you to know about.

What are McBucks? McBucks are flimsy pieces of plastic given to workers who either “did a good job” or sucked up to managers the most. A lot of the younger crew would be begging for the McBucks before their shift even started. None of these McBucks could be traded in for free food –the only thing we yearned for in exchange for our labor – instead we were expected to save these rectangles for an entire year, and only then could we spend them. At the end of the year, the crew would gather like a cult to a yearly function in which staff members would bid on “mystery prizes” using the McBucks we had saved. These prizes were gift wrapped and auctioned to us like a carrot on a stick. You COULD win a brand new iPhone, a TV, a Playstation. But you also had a 50/50 chance of winning a box of Favourites, a magic eight ball, or a keychain instead. People were clambering over each other, bidding thousands of McBucks. Imagine that: hours and hours of sweat, tears and hard labor, only to find out the free Airpods you so desperately wanted turned out to be a cheap little fidget spinner you could get at a two dollar shop. This was all in the name of “fun” of course,

but an unintended side effect of the McBuck System were the trades made behind closed doors. It starts off innocently enough, one crew member offering to pay for someone’s lunch in exchange for their McBucks, maybe someone will cover someone else’s shift. But then others would haggle, some would trade things like cigarettes, alcohol, weed, MDMA, ketamine. The manager’s didn’t notice, or sometimes they’d be a part of the trades too. One brave soul decided to photocopy and print out their own McBucks to bid at the auction night, which the managers didn’t notice until it was too late. Hilarious.

I don’t know if McDonald’s still dishes out McBucks, nor do I know when this system began or who first came up with the idea. From my research, I’ve found that McBucks have been in place for at least 17 years, with reports of the currency being used as far as Russia, Italy and America. In some locations, instead of an auction they would have what is called the “McShop”, essentially an end of year merch store snatch and grab for pens, plushies and mugs. One might question what the big deal is. Why get so upset over a company rewarding its employees with shiny objects? Office pizza parties and the McBuck system are ideas cut from the same cloth. There’s no need to ask for a pay rise, or free food, or a 10 minute rest break. Just be thankful that you’ll be getting two slices of Domino’s pizza and half a cup of warm coke this Friday.

In conclusion, fuck McDonald’s. Never work there. Never encourage your kids to work there either. If I’m ever desperate for cash, would I go back? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Words Edward Gay

Open sesame

Show your truths to me

The Notes Application, 2007 - 2023

Born in Cupertino, California. Always an open book to those of us here today.

It’s hard to imagine a world without their support.

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of the Notes app. The Notes app handled the vicissitudes of life with grace, and with such grace they handled their death. But this is no silent death, it is a murder. In June, Apple introduced the Journal App for iOS 17 to allow us to log daily experiences and memories, with suggestions to incorporate photos, location, music workouts and more: a purpose driven machine.

We are put here on this earth with no agenda, no timeline, no divine purpose. We scramble our way through life, making mistakes, improving ourselves for better or for worse. Just like us, the Notes app evolved.

But just like my beloved iPhone 4S, that got steam damage from playing music in the bathroom, nothing lasts forever. A gap in the market has been realised. The Journal App is coming, purpose built, purpose driven to take your secrets. The Notes app always had an open ear, ready for whatever journey your thumbs were ready for.

Before I found you, I used to whisper my secrets into the dark folds of the night. Clinging to the green light, hoping to remember them when I woke up. Scribbled into loose scraps of IGA receipt paper, to be shredded into anonymity in the washing machine.

Because of you I wear my heart on my sleeve, and my words in my pocket.

Pages filled with jokes I want to tell, numerous calculations for how to split the bill, draft text messages to my boss saying I can’t come in sent with my eyes closed, break up messages sent eyes wide open, things I want to remember. Most importantly I want to remember you, the Notes app.

Why do we need another vessel for shopping lists, kiss lists, bucket lists, hit lists. You were perfect.

My favourite memories like my favourite Notes entries are fragmented, lost in the cavernous place between thought, speech, and words. Lost in laughter, a quick 1-2, lost in fear of putting thought into words.

My heart and words will always belong to you. My scrappy manifesto.

Long live the Notes app.

Eulogy to

Words Emily O’Brien

the notes app

from Guangdong to Goulburn

Words

Aidan Elwig Pollock

From the Torres Strait to the Tasman Sea, thousands of country towns and outposts lie draped across a multitude of landscapes. In the Top End of the Northern Territory, towns like Katherine emerge from the savannah. In Ceduna, on the eastern edge of the desolate Nullarbor, distinctly South Australian buildings straddle the tiny hospitable strip of land between the wild Southern Ocean and the unforgiving Mallee Scrub. While in NSW, towns like Broken Hill could easily be on another planet, lying beneath the slag heap that replaced its longgone eponymous land feature.

Yet, there is perhaps one thing that unites every Australian town — an institution that has been embedded in our national story since the 18th century: the AustralianChinese restaurant.

Australian-Chinese cuisine has a long and fascinating history in our country. Despite popular urban myths, Chinese immigrant communities have been a vital thread in the patchwork of Australian society since Europeans arrived on these shores. According to Historian Michael Williams from the University of Western Sydney, “there’s a bit of a myth around that all Chinese food got introduced to Australia by the American soldiers during [WWII] because they were more used to eating Chinese food in San Francisco — that’s all bullshit”. Not only were American GIs “overpaid, oversexed and over here”, but they were eating AustralianChinese food that had already been developing into a unique cuisine for over 100 years.

Australian-Chinese cuisine really emerged on the goldfields. From the 1850s onwards, the Gold Rush spread across the pre-federation colonies. It was in this context that Chinese immigration, particularly from the Pearl River Delta in southern China, began in earnest. Chinese migrants — just like many from Western Europe — were initially racked with gold fever and intended to strike it big. However, gold prospecting was a thankless career, and so many Chinese-Australians began to diversify into a wide range of mercantile activities. Some of these activities involved setting up restaurants to cater for the boomtowns of the Gold Rush, the first opening in Ballarat in 1854.

It’s thought that by 1890, 1 in 3 chefs in the country were Chinese-Australian. These chefs were cooking for a wide clientele: their restaurants were not only hospitality

centres for homesick Chinese émigrés, but businesses targeting predominantly AngloEuropean Australians. It was for this reason that an entirely new cuisine developed, fusing elements of predominantly southern Chinese cooking with tastes palatable to white Australians.

Mongolian lamb is one such dish: Chef and food historian Ross Dobson notes that the recipe combines flavours of Guangzhou with Australian lamb — a meat uncommon in southern China but ubiquitous across Australia. Mongolian lamb has nothing at all to do with Mongolia and is “almost entirely unique to Australia”. My personal favourite, sweet and sour pork, is considerably more popular around the world but still diverges from traditional Chinese recipes. Meat as a culinary centrepiece is a theme in AustralianChinese cuisine, and in sweet and sour pork it is often unconventionally deep-fried, cooked in that delicious, fluoro-red sauce and topped with pineapple — three acts all incongruous with the dish’s origins in Guangdong province.

By the turn of the 20th century, Australian-Chinese cuisine was ubiquitous from Sydney to Sarina in Queensland. From our capital cities to the outback, it remains a unique and thriving cuisine across Australia.

But why is small-town Chinese food in particular so special? For me, it is an essential part of any good Australian town. I have been lucky enough to travel extensively across Australia, and in every far-flung settlement I’ve visited, its exquisite and homely flavours have been a perpetual source of joy. There is something inexpressibly special about throwing your bags down in a Hughenden motel and taking a stroll through the evening light to one of the best Australian-Chinese restaurants in Australia. Piling the delicious food from plastic takeaway containers onto motel plates is an essential part of the ritual, as is sitting cross-legged on a delightfully 1960s style bed to consume the meal.

Eating at these delightful establishments is just as dear to my heart. The visual aesthetic of the small-town Chinese restaurant is simultaneously tacky and incredibly beautiful. Take Coonabarabran’s Golden Sea Dragon Chinese Restaurant as an example, ornately decked from the floor to the ceiling in elaborate and vibrant décor. Or Katherine’s Regent Court Chinese Restaurant at the gateway to the Top End: its dim interior,

populated by quilted circular tables capped with Lazy Susan’s, coupled with an incredible sweet and sour pork, makes for an ideal small-town Chinese restaurant.

Enjoying Australian-Chinese food throughout rural and outback Australia has become a quintessential part of my road-trip experience since childhood. It is neither ‘authentically’ Chinese nor AngloAustralian. Rather, it represents an important – and delicious – component of Australia’s multicultural society, an inventive blending of global techniques and local tastes to produce a delightful cuisine unique to Australia.

It was January 29th, 2023, 2:06pm AEST (12:06 Malaysia Time) when the call was sounded. I was howling. A general malaise laminates the room.

Twitter. That old flame. @ricshatty writes: “enough girlbosses i need girlfailures. just an absolute loser of a female character. more women who suck!!!!!”

My whole world shatters.

@ricshatty who is this primordial being you speak of?

@ricshatty are we no longer implored to see a girlboss winning?

@ricshatty was Wonder Woman in Wonder Woman 1984 not enough for you?

Instead of spiralling into an identity crisis, I decided to discharge my questioning about this paradigmatic shift toward the only constructive place I know: Tumblr.

The girlfailure, cordially known as the ‘failgirl’, has certainly evolved from its Urban Dictionary origins. What was then a borderline chauvinist attempt to preserve the man’s position as hero, has now been reclaimed to deconstruct the overwhelmingly toxic

positivity that characterised the ‘girlboss movement’. The girlboss movement was a necessary product of the entrepreneurial boom, inspiring the once-ignored middle-aged bracket to “lean in” to their respective workplace hierarchies. But like every commercialised idea, the revolution became a monopoly. These expectations are now exemplified by elites who transformed the “we can do it!” mentality into “I can do it, can you?” The once revered girlboss became nothing but an unattainable fantasy that taunted the female experience. But where do we go after that?

I took to asking one of my Tumblr ‘oomfies’ (née ‘one of my followers’). After much back and forth where we engaged in erudite conversation, oomf pulled out all the stops to reference America’s favourite optimist, Sylvia Plath. “Oh, she’s quite underground!” I firmly remember remarking to myself. Oomf argues that, if women are placed in a position where “endless” possibilities surround them, having no platform to get there does in fact inhibit a quasi-paralysation of one’s goals. Louisa May Alcott famously writes, “I want to be great or nothing”. If greatness is unattainable, what are we left with?

And so, the call was sounded. The death knell for the girlboss was rung. All rise for the girlfailure!

But who is she? Western media is certainly not at a loss for girlfailure representation, especially in the last few years. A few that are dominating the girlfailure industry include Marnie Michaels (Girls), Alicent Hightower (House of the Dragon), Abbi Jacobson (Broadcity), Shego (Kim Possible), Shiv Roy (Succession)

(See failmarriage for further reading), Elizabeth Holmes (real life), Anna Delvey (also from real life but mainly from that show with Julia Garner) and Mrs Puff. These characters, despite various valiant efforts, never cease to blunder at every turn. Many of these characters, particularly Shiv Roy, even wear the rot of the girlboss movement. Striving so hard to be ‘SheE-O’, she fails to see the many downfalls of other aspects of her personage. Carrie Bradshaw may have lived the New York dream but was a doozy at sustaining sustainable relationships with those around her. Anna Wintour sustained a media empire, but at the cost of extreme mistreatment of her employees. Liz Lemon fit perfectly into the ‘workaholic’ lifestyle, yet she was selfish, unbalanced, and ignorant to the ideas of her co-workers. So, perhaps, she was here all along, waiting to capture our hearts in Act 3.

But why is it that our generation, the frontrunners of ‘woke culture’, seek out the downfall of female characters? Perhaps we don’t watch for sport. Perhaps we don’t even watch for catharsis. Maybe we are just tired.

So, hear, hear oomfies, all hail the

And so, the call was sounded. The death nell for the girl boss was rung.

It’s 2008 and you unzip your Smash lunch box only to realise mum didn’t buy the LCMs you asked for, but packed Uncle Toby’s mixed berry muesli bars instead.

The lunchbox economy exists on the areas of concrete that aren’t covered in bird droppings, between the painted squares we’d call handball courts, and on the silver seats under the cola — for those that ran out of the classroom fast enough to claim them.

Allen’s snake lollies are trading for five chips, popcorn still sits at five for a chip, Roll-Ups are worth approximately 15 chips (or a full packet), and apple slices are essentially worthless. Then there’s the kid that always gets food from the canteen because their parent works there; no amount of chips could be valued against the market monopoly of a school canteen.

There are the kids sick of their ham and cheese sandwiched between two reflectively white pieces of Tip Top bread, no crusts of course. Sitting next to them is that kid who refuses to take rice and dhal to school, but there was no other option today, so they mix up the cold yellow mush and rice with a teaspoon wishing they had fairy bread for lunch instead. The happiest kid in the playground is the one who got left overs from last night’s Pizza Hut delivery, or pasta that their dad cooked on the weekend.

Packed recess and lunch was such a huge part of our six hour days at primary school. While I still pack myself Roll-Ups or Le Snack when they’re on sale at Woolworths, and always have a serving or two of fruit in my insulated lunch box, my days of trading are long gone.

Tear out or cut off this page and fold it into a little zine following the instructions below.

Go back in time to the lunchbox economy, where a cost of living crisis would have meant nothing to us.

Words & Illustrations

Illustration

Miles Huynh

Words Sandra Kallarakkal

Editors

Lizzy Kwok @lizzy__430

divorcing sonal kamble

Lameah Nayeem @30nay.la puts rocks in Lindt wrappers for Halloween

Sonal Kamble @cbbgo3

divorcing lizzy kwok

Huw Bradshaw @childsouljaboy watching a movie...

Simon Harris @wikipedia_voyeur

Justine Hu @justiinehu making things

Senior Editor

Kate Saap @m1ss_kate getting the groceries

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Contributors

Harry Gay @harry.gay_ conducting some research

Amelia Raines

Victim of SSENSE homewares section

Aidan Elwig Pollock @marcell__toing silly little history student

Miles Huynh @lo.ng refuses to carry an umbrella

Misbah Ansari @chaosandlaughter Makes the whackiest potions.

Ariana Haghighi @powerfulowler down one wisdom tooth

China Meldrum @china.thecountry enjoying some Youtube Shorts

Bipasha Chakraborty @bipasha.c lasagne.

Sandra Kallarakkal @sandrakallarakkal falling asleep on public transport

Leon Karagic @leon_karrot insomniac sleeper agent

Felix Ashford @content_creator.1120

Bonnie Huang @localbonbon Collecting hair from the shower drain and yearning

Edward Gay @edwardjgay Marked safe from the Grimace Shake today

Clare Gim @clarecgim deficient in iron, hair ties and spatial awareness

Chloe Atkinson @chloeatkinsxn turns into a bat at night

Joseph John Kagsawa @joe.lello3 sentenced to a life of eating without youtube

Maddie Lewis @maddiel3wis big hate 4 feathers mcgraw

Nandini Dhir @iamnandinosaur I love milk

Nathan Phillis

Emily O’Brien @emm.obrienn

Prominent Meta-freak and #1 Zuckerbabe