CATALYST: 'DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE', Issue 4, Volume 79

ISSUE 04

DTRH

catalyst.

EDITION 79

Down Down The The

Rabbit Hole

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03 Playlist 04 Letter from the Editors 06 A Purple Glitter Pen (Childhood Psychosis) 12 The end of Scott Street (2:54) 16 A Nuclear Rabbit Hole 18 happy pills 24 The Nuclear reminder of Godzilla 26 Of ghostly ideas 28 We Want Everything For Christmas

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Contributions.

Catalyst Issue 5 2023 Established in 1944 Contact catalyst@rmit.edu.au RMIT Media Collective, RMIT City Campus, Building 12, Level 3, Room 97 Printer Printgraphics Pty Ltd 14 Hardner Road, Mount Waverley, Victoria 3149 Australia Photographers: Erina Hoque Shriya Sudarsan Rao Jonah Epstein

Editors: Olivia Hough Mihika Dhule Charlie Borracci Designers: Charlie Borracci Mihika Dhule Sophia Cuthbertson Soumill Sawmill Brianna Simonsen Vivian Dobbie-Glazier Editorial Committee: Juliette Salom Stella Thomson Julianna Rajkowski Claudia Weiskopf Ruby Edwards Alyssa Forato India Curtain Ruby Box

Creative Writing Officers: Juliette Salom Claudia Weiskopf Julianna Rajkowski Mina Wakefield Entertainment Officers: Ruby Box Vivian Dobbie-Glazier Ruby Edwards Olivia Hough Mina Wakefield

Catalyst and RMIT University Student Union acknowledge the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nations on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past, present and future.

Catalyst and RMIT University Student Union also acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and their ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where it contacts its business.

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Yi - Bon Iver Fallen Fruit - Lorde 10dEAThbREasT - Bon Iver You Know What I Need - Troye Sivan, PNAU Luvin U Is Easy - Confidence Man Desire (Gryffin Remix) - Years & Years, Gryffin wish that i could (Memphis LK Remix) - UMI, Memphis LK Something About Your Love - SG Lewis Fading - Toro y Moi Messy Love - Mura Masa VIRGO’S GROOVE - Beyoncé Persuasive - Doechii Good Intentions - Disclosure, Miguel Nuestro Planeta (feat.Reykon) - Kali Uchis, Reykon Bad Behavious - Austin Millz Waterfall - Disclosure, RAYE Just Say - Coco & Breezy, Tara Carosielli 3 AM - DRAMA Acid In My Blood - Channel Tres Kiss It Better-KAYTRANADA - Rihanna Unwind - Cosmo’s Midnight Titanic - Cosmo’s Midnight So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings - Caroline Polachek, A. G. Cook One Kiss (with Dua Lipa) - Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa THREE STRIKES (feat Khalid) TSHA Remix - HONNE, Khalid, TSHA Save Room For Us (Remix) - Tinashe, MAKJ Dancing Elephants - Rochelle Jordan day dreaming - BETWEEN FRIENDS All Up In My Head - No Rome Everything - No Rome Lara (feat. Clairo) - Sassy 009, Clairo Labyrinth - Taylor Swift FADED - Darius, Amaria Esther - BAYNK, Tinashe Recap (with VanJess & Channel Tres) - Kito, VanJess, Channel Tres I Like The Way - Moon Willis, Etta Bond Didn’t Know How (to Love You) - Joesef Sweet Love - Augustine 8 Ball - Underworld Back to Oz - Sujfan Stevens, Angelo de Augustine

sounds like

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Le

tter From T

It has been my privilege to have had the opportunity to work on Catalyst for the past year. While it makes me sad to step away from it, Catalyst has played an integral role in shaping my design work and creative journey.

For me Catalyst has been a form of escapism, a way to reflect on the deepest parts of my mind and share them within our community. I am going to miss it, but I can’t wait to see how it grows in the future!

Charlie

I want to wholeheartedly thank everyone who has been a part of the process, and a big thankyou to Liv and Mihika for all of the work they have done!

L

iv

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r o s t E i d e Th

v

As someone who is constantly nostalgic, I not only go down the rabbit hole but snuggle up all warm and live inside it. Taking a deep dive into my thoughts and memories has been a hobby since childhood. The end of 2023. the end of our era as editors calls for us to look back on the past 12 months and cherish everything we have made and done. And for the last time, I would like to thank Charlie and Olivia for being amazing co editors and our entire design team. And you. Thank you for sticking by our side despite this year’s untradtional formats with having to go online.

We cherish you and hope you come back next year. Love, Mihika.

Mihika

Spiralling downwards into a strange place of nonsensical meaning and colours… what will you find? Down The Rabbit Hole is an edition about all that is ethereal and surreal.

At the end of our term as editors, we come out the other side of the Rabbit Hole new people with a wonderful team we collected along the way. I am so grateful to have been apart of this magazine and to have worked with Charlie and Mihika. I wish the new editors all the best… and I hope they find the whimsy and delight in leading this crew, just as we did.

Goodbye! Love Liv xxx

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A Purple Glitter Pen (Childhood Psychosis) DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

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Amelia Geiss

Childhood Psychosis Primary school: year three.

Eight- and nine-year-olds running around the schoolyard, Kicking up dirt and grass, Eating sour grass picked through the fence.

I’m a year younger, a year more gullible.

My American accent is quickly fading into an Australian lilt, Like my mother’s.

I spell “mom” differently now.

My memories, Hazy, obscured by the veil of childhood, More feelings than thoughts.

A friend, I can’t recall her name.

She had a purple glitter pen.

Like the ones you get as souvenirs from tourist attractions.

She holds it, Testifying to its power, to me, her disciple.

It’s glittery after all, It must be special.

She tells me to hold the pen and lay under my bed, Imagine where you would like to go.

Hold that image in your mind.

It will take me through a door, a key, she says.

I took home the pen in my school bag.

I imagine a door to a place I have never seen.

A key.

I just need to focus more.

Child’s play, Although she spoke with such conviction. A key in her hands.

A purple glitter pen in mine.

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You told me you loved me, but replaced me like it was a lie.

I thought I would miss you more, but I just miss the potential of what could be.

You told me I was too good for you, and I think you are right.

I am too good.

I am all I ever will need.

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Charlie Borracci

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Charlie Borracci

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The end of Scott Street (2:54) I am 80. So old and frail.

Every night before I go to bed my life flashes by …………

I am 5 so little. Full of wonder. Not a care in the world other than my crayons scratching against some paper. I don’t know how to do fractions or double digit subtraction or say the word Isle.

But that’s alright. Someday I’ll learn.

I’m 7. A little older.

Getting on a plane that’s a forever goodbye. Leaving a foreign land I’ve never resonated with in my life.

Someday I’d like to visit. Maybe I’ll meet her there? Maybe I’ll give her a hug and tell her that everything will be alright. It hurts because I don’t know her and she’ll never know me.

I’m in a classroom. I’m 12 and in a place that is truly home.

Surrounded by other kids just like me. I change, evolve, grow. 3 always stayed with me. Those crayons were thrown out for paint and coloured pencils. I’m a bit different but that doesn’t bother me. I can’t wait to be a teenager.

I’m 15. I fall in love.

I scream as I struggle to do the things others do so easily. I don’t have a place to pour out all the good I have inside me. I’m confused.

16, and that’s another plane that’s a forever goodbye. 80% of of me is left behind. (So are the 3 who I will always love) It slowly dies as time moves on.

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I’m 18. I’m lonely, sad, angry and isolated. Heartbreak is a feeling only for the nighttime. I hold on to my laptop that replaced the paints. It pulls me through my passions. So far that there’s another plane waiting in front of me.

I’m 21. I’m so in love. In love with him. In love with life and yet I’m suffocating. I feel fulfilled. But so so uncertain.

25, and I — zzzzzzzzzzzzzz I wonder about waking up tomorrow. I’ll be … 81 …….

I ….. wonder … what’s ……………………………… ……………………………/……………………

…….. next.

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Amelia Geiss

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Grace Luo

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A Nuclear Rabbit Hole We’ve recently finished watching the Showa Era of Godzilla, a series of films from the beginning in 1954 to 1975, and one which has the notorious bizarre mix of being both incredibly influential on the entire franchise whilst also being incredibly campy, but we love it for it all the same.

The movies generally centre around an enormous dinosaur-like monster named Godzilla, who, at first, threatens the country of Japan but gradually becomes a hero to them, and is relied upon to protect them from other giant monsters.

Supplementing these stories are a human drama and/or conflict that generally tell stories of espionage, paranoia, advertising, journalism, soldiers, scientists, or whomever the director deems necessary as a framing device for the monsters.

The Showa films are filmed using “suitmation”, where the monsters are

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Malachy Lewis

portrayed by actors in suits. This generally has a very goofy effect on newcomers, but if you stick with it, it almost becomes a whole new level of action filmmaking on its own. The tokusatsu genre is not beholden to Western action tropes, it embraces, with full sincerity and passion, the idea that guys in ridiculous suits beating the snot out of each other whilst destroying miniature buildings is extraordinarily entertaining.

There are a number of rabbit holes to fall into once you fall into the main rabbit hole of watching the series itself. Like how the director of the majority of the Showa films, Ishirō Honda, is a close friend and colleague of renowned director Akira Kurosawa.

Or how Godzilla is sometimes green in promotional materials despite always being black in the actual films. Or how the monster suits had to be continually revamped because of injuries and difficulties for the actors inside while filming. Or how there exists an American localisation of the original film that completely re-edits the film to accommodate newly-shot scenes with American actor Raymond Burr. Whatever the case, the plethora of trivia and sheer endless joy to gain from watching this series is always a delight. It’s a testament to human creativity; behind every work of art is a story to tell beyond what is told in the art itself, but isn’t it beautiful to watch artists tell this story? To discuss a topic as heavy-handed as nuclear war paranoia and the gradual poisoning of the world and adapt these narratives into battles between giant monsters…it’s a wonder to witness and being among it.

Merely from the first film, you get a sense of the true nature of this series as an allegory for Japan’s anxiety surrounding the use of nuclear weapons, in which the monster, or kaiju rather, of Godzilla exists as a walking metaphor for this. As the Showa films go on, they become less about any overt political angle and prioritise spectacle, which has its place and serves some of the films well, but downgrades the overall bite of the series. Occasionally they dip their toes into something with consequence and political value, Godzilla vs. Hedorah from 1971 is a personal favourite of mine, telling the story of Godzilla’s battle against what is essentially sentient pollution that serves as a metaphor for climate change, toxic waste dumping and the pollution of the Earth.

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happy pills I lie on top of the duvet in little more than a tank top sweating profusely. It’s day three and I no longer want to give up. I just want to die. The grey sheets below me turn a dark ash colour from the liquid spouting from every orifice and bare patch of skin on my body. How much longer can this take, I think to myself, miming the words as I have no control over my muscles any more. My body makes its own decisions, being too occupied fighting itself to make good ones at that. I can barely keep these thoughts, these ones right here, from being completely overtaken as well.

Fuck those pills.

I try to look around, only my neck can move. The room is dark. I had to turn the lights off and close the venetian blinds. My eyes couldn’t handle it anymore, the light became tiny spears piercing the squishy interior of my cornea. A little light comes creeping through the cracks of the blinds, but that is all that allows me to make out my room. The government appointed lamp is turned off and sits next to the government appointed clothes rack of four beige clothing items; I lost the hat. The government appointed table is the only thing that makes the room look like a home, otherwise it would just be a bedroom with an ensuite. On the grey vinyl top table is the government mandated kettle and microwave. I left out the silver packets of protein sauce I was going to use to make ramen noodles two days ago, but I have been stuck between lying on this bed and hovering over the toilet, so I haven’t gotten around to it.

Withdrawal has overcome me. The worst is the nausea, though I don’t even know what that word means anymore. Is my stomach supposed to emulate a tumble dryer? Is it supposed to stretch on a medieval Rack? If I keep describing the pain will I distract myself from feeling it or will it make the pain feel threatened and need to live up to the standards I am setting it? Why am I even asking these questions when I have nobody to answer them even if they were answerable?

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Anonymous

My fingers tingle, shocks of electricity, they want to walk to the waste paper basket to retrieve the pills. I feel a flash of adrenaline. My body is conspiring against me. The shocking feeling started late yesterday, day two. I know now that I just have to wait through it. It will eventually leave me. I have to remember why I’m doing this, that will keep me strong. Three days ago, I had a dream. A dream in which I was a young child, I couldn’t have been much older than five years of age. I was wearing sunglasses on my shaved head and yellow dungarees with a bee sewn into the chest pocket. I had a cone in my hand with an unusual white substance, semi liquid semi solid, on top in a swirling mountainous form. I can kind of remember, I think they called it a “soft serve”. In the dream I dropped the cone. It tumbled in front of me in slow motion, spilling white substance onto the concrete floor until it landed on a forty-five-degree angle. I saw my chubby young face change rapidly from the cheery rosy cheeks to puffy and covered in snot and streams of tears. I was crying, something I don’t remember how to do.

The dream wasn’t just a figment of my subconscious, it was a memory. It all rushed back to me the second I woke up. Over twenty years ago I had cried, and that was the last time I can remember. Two years later the laws changed and the Happiness Bill was brought in. I have taken a pill three times a day since, one with breakfast, one with lunch and one with dinner. And all I’ve felt since was content. Aside from not crying since, a thought I never really dwelled on as it was a side effect and benefit listed on the bill proposal, I realised after that I had never felt the warmth in my cheeks like I had back then.

I’m distracted from my thoughts by the pointed tapping of low heels walking by my apartment; I see the shadows stop in the centre of the wood plated door. Metal clangs as a tray is passed swiftly through the gap between door and floor. I look at the government appointed clock between the door and the coat rack, across from the bed. Right on time. The shadows disappear and they walk past. Who is this person?

They’ve been doing this since I stopped taking the pills. Do they know? But how?

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happy pills p2 I’ll get up to eat in an hour; that is usually when I feel good enough to move from my cacoon of sweat and bed sheets. It’s not the mandatory eating time, but I think I’ve crossed that line. I must be the first criminal in ages. The Happy Pills were bought in to stop crimes and up general morale, that is also why they are free and required to be taken by law. I am also required by law to go to my job as a tech support assistant, but I called in sick just before I stopped taking the pills. It was a good job, or at least I think it was, it’s hard to know for sure nowadays. I miss sitting at a desk all day in that white windowless room with only Stephen for company and a black earpiece with a flashing blue light. Well, I wouldn’t really describe Stephen as company. He would just sit at the desk on the other side of the room and mindlessly do the job, not a conversational fellow. But right now, I crave his unsociability, anything would be better than this withdrawal. I have no idea how long this will all take, or for that matter what I will do when this is all over. What happens if my suspicions are proven to be true? Oh no, what happens if I was totally off the mark, if these pills are actually less than harmless? I hate to admit it but I jumped in this without a plan at all.

I start feeling a new torture. I feel pins and needles inserting into my eyes with the skills and pace of a master surgeon. I grip the edges of the pillow and sheets beneath, pulling and clenching in unison with the waves of stabs. I let out an audible, but muffled, creak of pain. Shit, if someone was in the hall they may have heard. I need to stay quiet. Think of something else, think of something else.

On the day I decided to stop taking the Happy Pills I was so caught up in the potential malevolence and scam created by the government, I didn’t really think about the consequences. I was prepping for breakfast, hastily pouring the contents of the cricket powder sachet into the silver tub of egg white, I had woken up a minute late, causing me to have no time to sit down to eat and I rushed to the pill bottle. I was about to pick it up when I had an unusual thought. Why? Why am I rushing to a job I don’t enjoy? Then I sat down for a moment in shock, because I didn’t know what that emotion I was feeling was. It felt almost hollowing, there was an itching deep withing my brain and heart.

What was enjoyment even? I thought we were all never going to be sad or angry ever again, but then how was I not enjoying my job. I sat in silence, like I did most days, but now I did it with racing thoughts of insecurity. The clock slowly loudened and then quickened until, I finally glanced over to it. I was thirty minutes late. Late for work, but most importantly late for the pill. Something no one had ever done before to my knowledge, let alone me. That’s when I decided to stop…

My rumination is cut short by another strike of nausea. My torso catapults up, jolting. Swaying back and forth slowly. The twitch in my fingers, and now my entire hand, has started up again, intensifying as the seconds both slow and fly past. My saliva is tainted and my eye starts twitching. Not the lid, the actual eye. No more thinking. Thoughts stop forming. Only a waterlogged brain and bodily awareness remains. I crawl off the bed in a rush of adrenaline as sweat oozes out of my skin. The room spins and lights within my eyes flash dancing colours.

My limbs move like a defeated donkey in a desert.

My hand plunges into the waste paper basket.

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Anonymous

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Soumil

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The Nuclear Reminder of Godzilla DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

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Luka D’Cruz At the axis of a nation devastated by nuclear bombing, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla (1954) mourns for the new world. The titular Kaiju himself, spawned from human-caused toxic waste, is a towering metaphor for the United States and its proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the film carries with it a politically charged horror that stretches well across the ravaged past of war and unto the threat of the post-apocalypse. It was the frontier of a planet now cursed with the knowledge of complete, humanmade, radioactive annihilation, and Godzilla had taken his first breath.

At this junction, the expectations were set for a marathon of Godzilla (and adjacent) films between a good friend and I; an effort that would span 56 entries across 8 decades, and one that thus far we have made the meagre dent of only 25, many of which were directed by one man, Ishirō Honda.

The political anger that charges so much of the original’s rhetoric only emerges fleetingly throughout the consequent entries, and its merit only erodes further over time. Aliens, from the series entry The Mysterians (1957) seem to promise an analogue for the US occupation of Japan as they use the language of peace to enact violence; by the 60s, a pharmaceutical company stages a fight between King Kong and Godzilla to boost television ratings in—you guessed it—King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), and by the late sixties, the central metaphor of nuclear weapons has been reduced to Godzilla acting as a stand-in for playground bullying in All Monsters Attack (1969).

Additionally, Godzilla’s status as a villainous nuclear weapon also seems to evaporate as his primary conflicts become more focused on fighting other monsters rather than wreaking devastation on Japan—there are 6 films within between the 60s and 70s that follow the title convention ‘Godzilla Vs.’—and it becames easy to characterise this wave of films as— due to its steering away from incisive politics and towards spectacle driven monster fighting between men in suits—supremely goofy. That was the characterisation I made.

But the 70s had rolled along, We were 19 films into the series at this point, all too familiar with the formula of director Ishirō Honda, and ever so slightly starting to learn the mechanics of his director counterpart Jun Fukuda. Sinking into this comfortable groove where I thought I knew what my thesis about these films perfectly cushioned me into the whiplash of Honda’s final Godzilla film: Terror of Mechagodzilla.

This is the film that closes the door on Honda’s interpretation of the character, and, without question, Godzilla is a hero in this one. His opposites, Titanosaurus, and Mechagodzilla—a mechanical version of the man himself—are dispatched with the utmost of cruelty by Godzilla, powered with such venom to find needlessly creative ways of destroying his helpless enemies, and settling a feeling within me that perhaps the departure I thought Godzilla had made from his evil nuclear metaphor was rather more of an evolution.

I reflected on this age, that lies in the wake of Truman’s acceleration of the H-bomb program to introduce Thermonuclear weapons to the world. This age, whereby upon the horrors of nuclear destruction and its aftermath, the powers that be sought to build more weapons. Here in 1975, the heroism of Godzilla was being used with the same malice of his 1954 counterpart.

From one side of a war there is always a sheen of triumph, and under it lies the haunting evidence that if a victory had been achieved, there must’ve been a fight.

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Of ghostly ideas A butterfly flapped its wings and you entered my life.

You, who dazzled me and frazzled me.

Would my childhood fantasy of a happily ever after come to life?

I guess not.

You left behind a ‘what if’.

So, down the rabbit hole of magical castles I go.

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Have you stood where I have and enjoyed the tranquillity of Yarra River?

Anonymous

I picture your shadow everywhere I go.

Which Red Hot Chilli Peppers song is your favourite?

Play the chords on your guitar, and I’ll sing the song.

G for... You told me your hair is wavy, and now I get off at Glen Waverley.

Surely, we’ve visited the same places?

You’ve been where I’ve been, just not when I’ve been.

Find a way back into my life, Traralgon.

Meet me at Library at The Dock.

Will our auras colliding shift the energy of the Universe?

A piece of a bigger-picture puzzle in place.

Will the stars align for us?

Text me, please, so I can tell you how I could lace that lower lip of yours with honey and suck on it forever!

Will our fires blaze brighter together, Leo? Let’s go to Ikea and start a home.

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We Want Everything For Christmas Aight so this is a pitch for, just the first act of a play/ movie I’m not gonna write. I had this idea at christmas a couple years back while listening to labor songs.

It’s called We Want Everything For Christmas TITLE CARD Blair Mountain, West Virginia, 1921.

We fade up on a ramshackle mining town getting bombed.

Coal miners have been on strike for months, and it’s escalated to all out warfare.

The bosses have got the cops, the Pinkerton Detectives, and the fucking US Air Force on their side, and the union miners are getting beat.

There’s explosions, screaming, poison gas, gunfireThe organisers know - this is the death of unions in America.

Our hero, uh, let’s call him Al, is a union leader in the Industrial Workers of the World and if he gets caught he’ll be shot.

So Al gathers up his family, their clothes, and his union paperwork and they run.

They run, past the bombs and the poison gas and the gunfire.

All the while hunted by Pinkerton agents.

These agents, their title is “detective” but really, these people are spies, scabs, thugs.

As close to evil as you can get.

Evil, maybe, but dedicated. Relentless.

The hit the Atlantic, the family gets on a boat, flees to Russia, but Al will get arrested in the city so they split.

Al meets a friend at an aerodrome outside of New York, where a friend has a hot air balloon fired up and ready for him; They tell Al, “God willing comrade, you’ll get into the jet stream, ride that across. Storms get nasty though, so if they hit hunker down and keep the flame lit!”

At takeoff, though, the Pinkertons arrive, and gun down the friend-

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Anonymous

Al screams NO from the balloon, takes a small bullet wound, and flies out over the Atlantic.

The most dogged detective, let’s call him Cain, steals a biplane and sets out to follow.

It’s not long till a thunderstorm hits, and Cain catches up to the balloonIt’s tense, it’s dark, Al is shooting back with a revolver, his compass is going wild, rain turns to sleet turns to hail, we see a vision of the biplane in each lightning strike.

One lucky shot snaps a cable, the basket sags, when a gust of rain extinguishes the fire.

We see Cain cackling, and chasing the sinking balloon.

Cut to black.

Cut to white.

TITLE CARD The Arctic Circle, daylight Sled dogs carve across a snowy plain, bells jingle with every step.

Behind them, a balloon hits the snow, hard.

We can’t see who’s driving the sled, but we hear their conversation.

The voices are small, high pitch.

We’ve got a schedule Bobby! Tell the big man when we arrive!

What if someone’s hurt?

And they turn the sled to investigate.

Al is just waking up, tangled in the rope and leather that was their balloon.

They hear feet, bells.

Eh Bobby, someone’s moving here!

Al looks up, bleary and sees...

Children?

No...

They’re small, but they look adult, wearing red and green,

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and these silly hats, and these silly shoes...

They cut Al free, and he thinks he’s either dead or dreaming when he asks...

What... are you? and they say Elfs, mister, what’re you?

What are.. I’m a... Wobbly Well ya look shakyNo, from the IWW, Industrial Workers of the... you know, one big union?

And the elfs look at each other and sayMister, what’s a union?

TITLE CARD Christmas Town, North Pole We sweep across the main street of a snowy, industrial village, factories and workshops and houses with very small doors.

An engine roars, the elfs look up, then clear the road as a biplane swoops in over the camera, and lands in a cloud of snow.

Cain climbs out, gun loadedI’m looking for a fugitive, who’s in charge here?

We swing around and see A large man, in a red coat, with white lining, and a big, floppy red hatHo ho hello, stranger! We don’t get many visitors! and Cain says Cain Smith, Pin- United States Government.

Let’s talk.

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Grace Luo

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PUBLISHED ON ABORIGINAL LAND