AUGUST 20 TH 2012
ISSUE. 18
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THE TEAM Editors: Asher Emanuel & Ollie Neas editor@salient.org.nz Designer: Racheal Reeves designer@salient.org.nz News Editor: Hugo McKinnon news@salient.org.nz Arts Editor: Adam Goodall arts@salient.org.nz Film Editor: Gerald Lee Books Editor: Kurt Barber Visual Arts Editor: Rob Kelly Theatre Editor: Jonothan Price Music Editor: Philip McSweeny Feature Writers: Fairooz Samy Chris McIntyre News Interns: Grace Tong Shilpa Bhim, Phillipa Webb Chief Sub-Editor: Carlo Salizzo Distriubution Specialist: Michael Graham CONTRIBUTORS Hayley Adams, Morgan Ashworth, Todd Atticus, Hilary Beattie, Rose Burrowes, Lance Cash, Choaty, Geoff Cochrane, Sue Corkill, Richard D’Ath. Uther Dean, Martin Doyle, Harriet Farquhar, Reed Fleming, Stephen Gillam, Jessamym Gemming, Marcus Greville, Ben Hague, Ryan Hammond, Aaron Harland, Christian Hermansen, Roxy Heart, Bridie Hood, Russ Kale, Hamish McConnochie, Callum McDougal, Duncan McLachlan, Caitlin MacKay, Emma Maddox, Matthew Martin, Chandra Miller, Joanna Morgan, Phoebe Morris, Udayan Mukherjee, Livvy Nonoa, Sam Northcott, Sam Philips, Will Robertson, Bas Suckling, Josh Van Veen, Michael Warren, Erika Webb, Mercedes Webb-Pullman, Matt White, Josh Wright, Sophie Yeoman. Contributor of the Week: Carlo Salizzo. Ceaseless grammar. CONTACT Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington Phone: 04 463 6766 Email: editor@salient.org.nz ADVERTISING Contact: Mark Maguire Phone: 04 463 6982 Email: sales@vuwsa.org.nz ABOUT US Salient is produced by independent student journalists, employed by, but editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of, syndicated and supported by the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA). Salient is funded by Victoria University of Wellington students, through the student services levy. It is printed by Printcorp of Tauranga. Opinions expressed are not necessarily representative of those of ASPA, VUWSA, Printcorp, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, DeviantArt, Andy Borehole, and every other cunt with a paint brush but we at Salient are proud of our beliefs and take full responsibility for them. OTHER Subscriptions: Too lazy to walk to uni to pick up a copy of your favourite mag? We can post them out to you for a nominal fee. $40 for Vic student, $55 for everyone else. Please send an email containing your contact details with ‘subscription’ in the subject line to editor@ salient.org.nz
P AG E 21
THIS ISSUE IS DEDICATED TO
PVA and ice-block sticks. 2
THE
ARTS
THE
NEWS
THE
COLUMNS
5. News
12.
19. You Could Travel The World But Nothing Comes Close To The Golden Coast
9. LOL
13. Political Porn With Hamish
37. VUWSA Vice President (Academic) 38. Bent
20.
Cactus Bloom
14. Mulled Whine With H.G. Beattie
21.
One Page Play
22.
In Wellywood
16.
The Freedom and The Fury
10.
World Watch
11.
The Week That Wasn’t
11.
Overheard At Vic
23. Untitled
IN
REVIEW
Partisan Hacks
VUWSA AND FRIENDS
15. C.R.E.A.M 15.
Science: What's It Up To?
39.
Roxy Heart
39.
Of The Week
40.
Things I Already Know But Just Need To Be Told Eat Your Fucking Greens
24.
Stacks on Stacks on Sax
26.
Fuck Shoes
27.
Late Nights
31. Music
40.
Thinking Inside The Box
32. Film
41. Philosoraptor
The Immigrant
33.
28. 29.
30. Untitled
Youtube.com/SalientTv
Books & Video Games
41.
On Campus
34. Theatre
42.
Nothin' But Net
34.
42.
Lovin' From The Oven
Visual Arts
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this year’s volume of Salient would be missing something truly vital. And we wanted to do it in a particular way. We wanted you, dear reader, to bump into some art in this lump of paper and staples. We wanted something more than a collection of articles about art, something other than a set of interviews with artists about their art, something different to reviews canvassing our writers’ feelings about others’ art. We wanted some of the real stuff. And we wanted it to be right there, infront of you. It needed to be there for you in your morning lecture, to be discarded on the floor of a bathroom in the library, and to be viewed in bed then moved onto the paper recycle. This all seemed a dandy idea a few weeks prior to this moment when we were chipping away at our standard email to contributors: “Hi ASHER & OLLIE there! Just writing to say that we need all your art. Cool. Thanks!!!” How naive we were. We had no It’s rather difficult to write about art that neither of us are artists per se. without sounding like a complete Nor are we students of art. Let’s be idea of the difficulties that lay lurking prat. This is particulary so when honest: we have no idea what we’re behind our hopes of an ideal artistic symposium. Art, it turns out, is a total attempting to write an editorial that talking about. clusterfuck. ought capture the spirit of the issue But we felt we had to do an issue before you. For us, this task was The creation of any piece of art is about art. Not by obligation of made more difficult by the reality intensely personal. The creator is tradition, but because without it,
this is art ▲ ◎ ◍
36.
38.
Presidential Address
Student Health
SALIENT
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YOU
4. Dinocop 43. Notices 44. Letters 46. Puzzles 47.
Radio & Gig Guide
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placing there, in one spot, a slice of how life, the world and everything is, or ought be. So on reflection, it’s no surprise that people were reticent to send us their work. “That was but the beginning.” We had to select art—to make some decisions (decisions are just the worst…) about what we would publish, and the harsh corrolary— what we wouldn’t. Oh, the horror. We felt a great fear to trust our own judgement for we knew that the exercise of that judgement would in some way impact upon the art we were publishing—upon the intimate utterances of others. We were afraid to fuck it up. And maybe we have. But here we are. That final judgement must be your own. Placed next to what we normally produce, the content of this issue is more ephemeral. Being used to producing a magazine structured around articles and topics, we were at first terrified by pages consisting simply of, well, art. But as we slowly cobbled this issue together it became clear to us that these works spoke their own volumes. We hope you’ll come to agree.
TOP
10 Artistic
MASTERPIECES CARLO SALIZZO
TEN Julian Assange’s hair
NINE Firefly
EIGHT Von Zedlitz building
SEVEN Google Doodles
SIX Cigarette branding
FIVE Crystal Meth
FOUR Your face, gurl
THREE Kim Dotcom’s PR
TWO Jason Segel
ONE The Dyson Airblade
S A M N O R T H C OT T
NEWS NEWS
SEND ANY PERTINENT ☞NEWS LEADS OR GOSSIP TO ☜ ╳ Salient never sleeps. ╳
August 20 th 2012
ALL THE NEWS UNFIT FOR PRINT
THE MONEY IS GONE
WELLINGTON RAPE CRISIS FORCED TO CUT SERVICES. S H I L PA B H I M
Wellington Rape Crisis will no longer be operating on Fridays due to a lack of funding.
City Council, lotteries grants, trusts and fundraising appeals.
of duties.
Demand for support services has doubled in the past year, but a shortage of funds saw the agency fall $55,000 short of breaking even this financial year.
“We don’t want to lose an organisation like this and we have told Rape Crisis to apply for the next round of funding,” Farrar said.
The entry in question was posted to the company’s Facebook page and treated as humorous the account of one man placing his penis into the mouth of a sleeping friend.
The agency announced the 20 per cent service cutback last week, after 35 years of providing free counseling and support services to female survivors of rape and sexual abuse.
Rape Crisis has chosen to close its doors one day a week as an alternative to making staff redundant.
Agency Manager Natalie Gousmett said that it is difficult to sustain a free, five-days-aweek service when the agency does not have the money to do so. “Every year it’s a challenge to keep our service open and without any consistency and sustainable funding there’s so much uncertainty.”
“We are chronically underfunded,” Gousmett said. The agency relies on funding from a variety of sources including the government, the
The Council has had less money available for grants since the recession and only recently learned of the difficulties faced by the agency, said Mark Farrar, of the Funding Division at Wellington City Council.
Opposition MPs are calling on the Government to step in and ensure that Rape Crisis can provide its vital services to women in the community.
Labour Party Women’s Affairs Spokesperson Sue Moroney believes that women’s safety needs to be made a priority.
“Here we have an agency making a difference in women’s lives and yet it still struggles to secure funding.” Alternatively, the ACC and the Ministry of Social Development offer counseling and support services for victims of sexual abuse. However, the service provided by these agencies is limited due to their broad range 5
Last week, Hell Pizza was accused of downplaying the seriousness of sexual assault in one of its marketing campaigns, which publicised customers’ anonymous ‘confessions’ and rewarded the ‘best entries’ with prizes.
After calls for the company to make a donation, Rape Crisis accepted $10,000 from the fast food chain, with the condition that Hell senior management and staff attend sexual violence awareness training run by Rape Crisis.
Rape Crisis needs to raise the rest of the $55,000 before April 1 2013 in order to keep its doors open and is calling on the community and private benefactors to support it. If you would like to make a donation to Wellington Rape Crisis, visit www. wellingtonrapecrisis.org.nz.
NEWS
BOUNTY HUNTERS
IRD TO CRACK DOWN ON INTERNATIONAL LOAN THIEVES P H I L L I PA W E B B
New Zealand expatriates who refuse to repay their student loans may be facing bankruptcy, but this could have important implications for students wishing to travel overseas. Documents released by Inland Revenue reveal plans to take legal action against Australiaand Britain-based borrowers who have not met required student loan repayment targets. The IRD appears to be primarily targeting are those who have been overseas for long periods of time with no sign repaying or returning to New Zealand. “They know they’ve got a loan, and we know that they are in a position to pay but simply not wanting to do anything about it,” IRD collections manager Richard Owen said. As part of its legal action, the IRD may apply for several court orders, including taking a part of a person’s salary or seizing their assets. Although no-one has yet had bankruptcy proceedings filed against them, the IRD has taken action against 360 people in New Zealand and 38 borrowers who live overseas,
most of them in Australia. However, President of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations Pete Hodkinson, says it is this kind of behavior from overseas borrowers that the government uses to justify increasing loan repayments and decreasing student allowances. Earlier this year the National Government decreased the loan repayment holiday from three years to one year, a move Hodkinson described as a poor decision that ‘criminalises’ graduates who are overseas for longer, but who do intend to pay. The new payment system will have negatively impact on the majority of students who are not ‘problem borrowers,’ he said. “The average time spent overseas on an OE is around 18 months... gaining international experience and bringing that back to NZ is hugely valuable.” “Giving graduates an extra couple of years’ gap after graduation to get their feet financially planted on the ground is perfectly
VICTORIA WINS ARGUMENT
LOST
STILL WAITING ON THE WORLD TO CHANGE HUGO McKINNON
A team from Victoria’s Debating Society beat Auckland University in the final of the Next Generation series of debates, last Wednesday. The team composed of Richard D’Ath and Asher Emanuel debated the moot “that there should be higher taxes on the rich,” speaking for the affirmative. The debates were sponsored by the New Zealand Initivate, a policy think tank and merger of the Business Round Table and New Zealand Institute, dedicated to improving the quality of policy discussion in New Zealand. Otago and Canterbury Universities also competed in the series. The series of debates were held around the country at a number of secondary schools, canvassing topics including the adoption of children by same-sex couples and the banning of tobacco products.
CONNECTIONS BUS CHANGES "REALLY INCONSIDERATE" HUGO McKINNON
The Greater Wellington Regional City Council has released its proposed changes to the Wellington bus network as part of its bus review. The Council first sought consultation from residents in 2009, seeking further input earlier this year. The new plan claims to increase the frequency of services to the Victoria’s Kelburn campus during evenings and weekends. However, under the changes, the Campus Connection which currently runs between Karori and Miramar, visiting Massey University and all of Victoria’s campuses, will no longer be servicing Newtown. A student Salient spoke to said, “Considering the amount of students that live in newtown due to the ridiculous expensive rents around university, it’s a really inconsiderate move by the council.” As part of a trial designed to boost transport efficiency, late running buses will soon have green-light priority at intersections. 6
reasonable, rather than passing policy to criminalise them,” said Hodkinson. One student Salient spoke to says the proposed threat of legal action from IRD would deter his plans to travel overseas as a graduate. “I wouldn’t want to leave NZ with the burden of a potential court battle when I got home.” The late Sir Paul Callaghan, a Victoria Professor of physical science, led an appeal in 2011 to encourage overseas borrowers to repay their loans and help the Christchurch earthquake recovery. However the Government-supported appeal received backlash from borrowers who said the government had no right to ‘guilt-trip’ them into repayments. “What I am asking for... is more consideration of what the effects of wide ranging, and briefly considered policy decisions will be,” Hodkinson said.
OVERWORKED STAFF DISPLEASED PBRF BLAMED AGAIN HUGO McKINNON
The TEU has said it is still dealing with a number of personal disputes relating to the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF). By improving their research output, Universities receive more money from the fund. However employees have cited workload and performance pressure. Between March and April the TEU handled over 150 personal cases at 28 tertiary institutions, and is usually investigating at least 100 cases at any one time. In March, Victoria’s Dr Martin Lally accused the University of manipulating the lengths of its employees contracts in order to improve its PBRF result, but an investigation found no wrongdoing by the University. The University wanted to provide a statement the current issues, but was unable to do so before Salient went to print.
NEWS
VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS
'VOLUNTARY' REDUNDANCIES
AUCKLANDERS FRAUDULENT HUGO McKINNON
CANTERBURY STAFF TOLD TO GO QUIETLY G R AC E TO N G
Canterbury University is asking if some of its staff would be willing to take redundancy voluntarily for the second time in ten months. Canterbury Vice-Chancellor Rod Carr has previously said a lack of funds requires the University to cut 150 staff positions over the next three years. The University hopes that calling for voluntary redundancies will reduce the number of staff it will have to let go against their wishes. “We really do want to try to keep the compulsory redundancies to a minimum, but it’s almost inevitable there will have to be some,’’ said Carr. He added that the reduction in staff numbers would be achieved through a combination of retirements, cutting casual and fixedterm staff, and leaving some vacant positions unfilled. Prior to the February 2011 earthquake, Canterbury was averaging a 5.5 per cent staff turnover every year. Fifty positions, or about 2.5 per cent of the total staff will be cut each year. This is an improvement on the 3 to 4 per cent that the University had previously predicted last October. However, Tertiary Education Union national president Sandra Grey is critical of Canterbury’s decision. “Piling more and more work onto fewer people is not sustainable, and will not lead to the quality education Cantabrians deserve,” she said. Canterbury’s financial situation is the direct result of its earthquake recovery process as it faces rising insurance costs and staff costs. It is expected to run a deficit of $38 million in 2012, not reaching surplus until 2021. In the meantime, it has used $35 million of its dwindling cash reserves to repair buildings, and plans to increase its debt from $50m to $118m by 2021. In contrast, Otago reported a $13 million operating surplus for the first half of the year. The surplus “more than” covered the cost of repairing its Christchurch campus, said financial services director Grant McKenzie. It is estimated Victoria ran a surplus of $5 million. Canterbury University has experienced the worst of a nationwide drop in student numbers, with Lincoln University being the only university whose numbers have increased.
The former treasurer of the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA), Tania Lim along with two other students filed a complaint with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against the AUSA last Wednesday. Alledgedly, AUSA did not properly account for $600,000 worth of transactions between the association and related parties such as Auckland University’s student magazine, radio, and bar. Lim said she had become aware of the discrepancies while she was Treasurer in 2011, but had not brought the matter to the attention of the SFO because she had a conflict of interest. While have been ongoing for a long time, she would not provide detail on the allegations until the matter had been properly investigated. AUSA President Arena Williams could not be reached for comment.
SOME PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT EDUCATION SOPHIE YEOMAN
New Zealand’s tertiary education system was the flavour of the week for two forums held at Otago University and Manukau Institute of Technology on the 8 and 13 August respectively. The future of tertiary education in New Zealand was the focus of both forums, with topics of discussion including tertiary funding, the ‘dumbing down’ of qualifications, and the increasing use of online teaching. Tertiary Education Union National President Sandra Grey said that changes in government funding to tertiary education have led to less democratic decision-making, increased workloads for staff, and a lack of creativity and collaboration in the tertiary education sector. Panels were in agreement that if the tertiary education environment is to improve, providers need to be given more autonomy over programmes and funding.
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CORRECTION: In last week’s executive review, Salient incorrectly gave Andreas Triandafilidis and Reed Fleming five-star ratings, they should have received three and four stars respectively.
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7
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NEWS
BEDTIME AT TE PUNI
Students were invited by VUWSA to attend a meeting about the changes in May, while only ten people were present, it was reported many residents feared being chastised by the hostel if they attended. A Facebook poll listed 76 of 84 respondents as opposing the changes.
“These students were concerned about the impact of these rule changes on their social calendars, but more importantly disappointed with the level of consultation engaged in by the Village,” author of the recommendations and Clubs Officer Reed Fleming said in his letter to Te Puni. In May, quiet hours were altered to begin at 10pm instead of 11:30pm, forcing students to leave the hostel earlier on Friday and Saturday nights.
MANAGEMENT PLAYS DUMB OVER QUIET HOURS HUGO MCKINNON
VUWSA has submitted several recommendations to Te Puni Village management after it failed to respond to students’ concerns over changes to the hall’s quiet hours.
However by the time Salient went to print Te Puni Village had still not acknowledged the recommendations, which they received in early August.
VUWSA recommended that Te Puni Village reverse the changes, acknowledge that it did not adequately consult students, and “widen the scope” for student representation through its residents’ association. “It was unfortunate that Te Puni Village did not engage with us as we consulted with residents who both opposed and supported the changes,” Fleming said.
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8
NEWS
C A I T L I N M A C K AY
GREEDY PIE THIEF HAUNTS QUAINT SOUTHERN TOWN A 33-year-old man was arrested in Queenstown after being accused of entering a bakery and eating another man’s pie. The man was taken into the police station after refusing to give any additional details. After arriving at the station, he returned the stolen property through his mouth and onto the floor. Relief was felt, as police had been worried the situation would turn thermonuclear. Meanwhile nearby, an Australian stripped naked and jumped into Kawarau River but was later pulled out of the freezing water. Salient suspects that after significant shrinkage, he appeared less than remarkable.
LOL DOTCOM A MEGABULLY Many people have been confused as to why the New Zealand government utilised its elite counter-terrorism unit to raid ‘Megaupload’ founder Kim Dotcom’s mansion. But last week, the heavy-handed police actions were vindicated as Dotcom was proven to be a violent man, using any weapon in his arsenal. Though it wasn’t his arse, the obese Dotcom is alleged to have used his stomach to assault his former video editor Jess Bushyhead. Bushyhead reports that Dotcom used his ROBERT PATTINSON stomach to “body-butt” him in the shoulder. REPORTED "SAD" This fracas came after a heated work-related dispute between the two in which Dotcom also dared to poke Bushyhead with his finger. Stuff.co.nz has reported that Robert Salient has yet to hear if Dotcom is reportedly Pattinson looks sad. An extensive body of photographic evidence accompanies the story. producing a song about the incident. That is all.
9
NEWS
PLANET EARTH IS A COMPLICATED PLACE AND A LOT
W
goes down. It can be hard to ✷ KEEP UP AND EASY TO ✷ SOUND LIKE A DICK WHEN YOU
ORLD
WATC
H
SALIENT CONSIDERS IT ITS GODGRANTED DUTY TO PROVIDE YOU, DEAR READER, ALL OF THE BASIC FACTS ABOUT THE BIGGEST ONGOING WORLD ISSUES SO YOU CAN APPEAR MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE THAN YOU ACTUALLY ARE—JUST LIKE US.
In Quito, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister accuses the British Foreign Office of threatening to storm Ecuador’s Embassy in London in order to capture international criminal mastermind and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up there since June. In London, his Royal Highness Prince Philip, husband of her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II, is hospitalised for the third time this year for a pesky bladder infection. Salient wishes our favourite royal spouse (fuck you, Kate) a speedy recovery. In the tumultuous seas off the coast of Japan, Japanese police detain 14 pro-China activists as they attempt to land on an archipelago near Okinawa, its ownership hotly-disputed by the two East Asian neighbours. Kawaii desu ne. In the Middle East, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait all urge their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately following a string of abductions by the Shia al-Meqdad Clan, spurring fear that conflict is spreading beyond Syria’s tidy state borders. In Canberra, the High Court of Australia reminds everyone that it is indeed the law, upholding the Gillard administration’s decision to mandate plain packages for cigarettes. The government hopes that less children will buy the pretty coloured packages, much to the chagrin of Big Tobacco. In the United States, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has a change of heart and turns his endless money pile to producing less shit, announcing the winner of a competition to design a super-efficient toilet for countries lacking in adequate sanitation. Windows, however, remains a turd. In Gore, the local Police Constable announces that the culprit behind an attempted arson of a residential hedge may be the same sneaky individual who attempted to burn down the same hedge last week. Despite the promising lead, Constable Wright is not sure how large the fire was or whether anything was used to start it.
A SISTERLY SQUABBLE UNDERSTANDING THE TENSION IN SUDAN B E N H AG U E
It’s been just over a year since the messy breakup between the central African countries of Sudan and South Sudan, but there is still a long way to go before they’ll be on reasonable terms with each other. The South celebrated its first birthday in July, with thousands of citizens taking to the streets of the capital, Juba, to wave flags. Although the area has been autonomous since the end of an ethnic civil war in 2005, citizens are still pretty stoked about their young nation’s independence. But critics say there’s not much to party about. Oil is their main problem. South Sudan scored seventy-five per cent of the oil fields when it became independent, but it needs access to Sudan’s pipelines and sea ports in order export the oil and make money. Sudan tried to charge the South transit fees to use its facilities, which the South did not pay, claiming they were a rip-off. Furthermore, Sudan was accused of forcefully thieving some oil for its troubles, which really pissed of South Sudan. South Sudan relies on oil revenues for ninety-eight per cent of its budget, so you can imagine how completely screwed their economy was when oil output was shutdown to 350,000 barrels a day. The two countries have now reached an agreement on oil transit fees, but since both sides have failed to hold up past agreements 10
and the oil deal is conditional on a border security agreement, no-one is holding their breath. Although oil is South Sudan’s main problem, it’s not the only one. There is some serious disagreement over the where the border lies. Since the split, each country has citizens whose homes now lie in foreign territory. On top of that, both governments have accused each other of supporting rebel groups. If only splitting a country in two was easier! Internally, South Sudan is also dogged by problems. Of its ten states, seven are racked by inter-ethnic violence and armed rebellions due to alleged vote rigging, cattle rustling and land disputes. But just when things seemed like they couldn’t get much worse, hope appeared in the form of a heart-melting smile and devilish good looks: George Clooney. Using his celebrity to cast light on the situation between South Sudan and Sudan, Clooney has met with President Obama, testified before the Senate's foreign relations committee, and even been arrested for the cause after blocking the entrance to the Sudanese embassy in Washington. Perhaps not as good a Batman as Christian Bale, he has been a vigilante nonetheless, and, we can be assured, he is on the case.
NEWS
OVERHEARD AT VIC
Overheard in 300 level ECON: lecturer: “Do you know the difference between a commerce student and an arts student?” Class: ... Lecturer: “Commerce students know the reason why they are not going to get a job!” Kartik Sourirajan Overheard on the Overbridge: “vaginas are pretty complex, they’re like fleshy rubick’s cubes” Jepha Purple Overheard in CHEM114 lab: guy walking through the lab: “it looks like a potions class from hogwarts Overseen in every lecture, ever: Someone who walks in and gets their laptop out, spends the entire fifty minutes on either 9GAG or Tumblr without so much as glancing at the lecturer, and then leaves when it’s over. Why even show up? Jordan Murray
THE
WEEK
Overheard walking down to town from Vic: “I know it’s bad... but I can’t help but think that all Canadians carry around flasks of maple syrup... I’d totally carry around a flask of tomato sauce...” Anna Parsons Overheard in library: “silent study is never going to be a reality if that chick won’t stop breathing like a jet engine!” Brooke ‘Alfie’ Butler Overheard in CLASS 208/308: Lecturer: “honey I went to mermaids because I love you” Lauren Fletcher Overheard in level 1 Cumberland, Ustay: Blonde: “omg I’m going to be so old soon!” Guy: “And how old’s that?” Blonde: “18!” Blonde: “That’s like half way to 44!” David Codde Overheard in Hist118: Lecturer: PC stands for piece of crap Harriet Riley Overheard by overbridge: Guy- what do you want to do for dinner. Girl- they same thing we do every night...try to take over the world. Patrick Jennings Overseen: Cats, strategically placing themselves so as to get petted by as many students as possible as we travel to and from uni. Daniel Christopher Mawhera White Email snippets of Vic life to overheard@salient.org.nz, or find overheard@vic on Facebook.
THAT
WASN'T MAN USES INSTAGRAM TO DOCUMENT THE PITFALLS OF CAPITALISM. HUGO McKINNON
On Friday, Aaron McCoy decided to deride capitalism after giving a homeless man a dollar, taking a photo of the moment with his iPhone and posting it to instagram. “The Government sucks and stuff,” he said. “You can practically smell the neo-liberalism in here”, says McCoy whenever he enters a room, seeking approval from everyone else and getting as much self-satisfaction out of the situation as humanly possible. “I really like it when he makes statements like that,” said McCoy’s friend, Tony Toes. “Sometimes I don’t know what I should think, but it’s clear that Aaron’s clearly thought out both sides of the argument, so I just adopt his opinion” “Sometimes I don’t know what I should think, but it’s clear that Tony’s clearly thought out both sides of the argument, so I just adopt his opinion” said Toes’ friend Tim Leeming, described by his mother as a bright young man, willing to speak his mind. 11
When asked to justify his viewpoint, McCoy looked bewildered. “It’s just so obvious, can’t you see?” However, as of Friday, McCoy has reportedly been courting Alicia Goulding, an ECON 140 student who has recently embraced market forces after she thought about it for about twenty minutes, in no real depth, in that one lecture she went to. “The Government sucks and stuff,” she said. Living at her parent’s home in Roseneath, Goulding claimed she “totally got” that it was harder for children in poverty to achieve, but there was no real reason why it should be harder for children in poverty to achieve. “It’s just so obvious, can’t you see?” she said. “I’m willing to compromise my moral, political, and economical position for that sweet fine girl,” said McCoy, when asked whether he was romantically compatible with Goulding, considering their ideological differences. “If that’s not love, then what is?”
act on campus
nz first youth
We support the retention of the 5% party vote threshold and the existing one seat threshold. The 5% party vote threshold is widely understood in political circles and stops the proliferation of small parties, while the one seat threshold has so far contributed towards stable government. These examples prove that there is no reason for change.
No. We had a referendum to put the five percent threshold in place, we should have a referendum to lower it. Josh Van Veen
Michael Warren
♔
PA RT I S AN
♔
SALIENT ASKED, “Do you support the Electoral Commission’s recommendations for adjusting the thresholds of the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system?”
THE HACKS RESPOND...
vic labour
greens at vic
vic nats
Yes. The Electoral Commission engaged with the public and have delivered recommendations which will make our elections more democratic. Removing the “coat-tailing” loophole and lowering the threshold will make Parliament more representative and democratic. It puts and end to the days of dirty deals that we saw in Epsom in 2011 which has given this government the votes it needs to sell off our most precious assets.
The Electoral Commission’s recommendations must be taken up by the Government. Lowering the party vote threshold to 4% will help reduce wasted votes, while still ensuring Parliamentary stability. Meanwhile, getting rid of the ‘1 seat rule’, (which most New Zealanders are in favour of abolishing) where an MP who wins an electorate seat can bring in other MPs even if they don’t reach the party vote threshold, will help to ensure that everyone’s vote counts equally.
Unfortunately, Vic Nats did not respond to Salient's quite reasonable query this week. Shame, that.
Reed Fleming
Harriet Farquar
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REVIEWING THE MMP REVIEW HAMISH MCCONNOCHIE
when Social Credit received over 20 per cent of the “popular vote” but only won around 2 per cent of the seats in Parliament. Proportional representation goes hand in hand with minimising wasted vote. Some may not appreciate the behaviour used by particular parties to use the system to their own benefit, but voters don’t appreciate gaming of the system. Parties are fully aware of the risk of a voter backlash against such practices. The proposed changes by the Electoral Commission will make our Parliament less proportional, as the four per cent hurdle may prove to be too hard to clear, especially without an electorate seat to give voters the confidence to cast their ballot in favour of a minor party. The Government is not required to adopt the proposed changes, only to consider them. Whilst adopting them would likely spell the end to the prop-up duo of John Banks and Peter Dunne, it is apparently their ticket to a third term in government, putting Colin Craig and Winston Peters in the role of kingmaker. In an earlier edition of this column, it was outlined that National’s position on holding the pension age at 65 was done with one eye partly on 2014. Even before the Electoral Commission’s recommendations came out, National had been staring down the barrel 13
of coming out of the next election without a centre-right coalition partner. Winston wants to leave the super age at 65, Shearer wants to raise it. Key is telling Peters that post 2014 he’ll need to side with him if he wants to keep it 65. Lowering the threshold to 4 per cent would also be fertiliser for wannabe MP Colin Craig. His party polled around 2.5 per cent at the election, lifting it to 4 per cent makes it just that little bit easier for Craig to enter the scene. It’s good news for National, who would want to distance themselves from some of his move divisive views, but still want his votes. No longer will they need to try and engineer a seat deal to see him elected to Parliament. It’s a shame to see that the electorate vote will remain First Past the Post. A preferential or alternative vote on the electorate candidates would mean parties like the Greens could stop pulling their “vote for who you think is the best candidate” routine. It would also mean electorate votes could be cast for candidates people are most in favour of, rather than being cast to stop someone else being elected, as so often occurs currently. Hamish is generally wrong.
@mishviews
PHOTO BY CHANDRA MILLER
So the Electoral Commission has done its thing, releasing its review of the Mixed Member Proportional system. By the time this column is in front of you, much of it will have been chewed through by a variety of commentators, providing analysis of what it means for which party and whether or not National will support the changes. The most notable recommended changes are those around the threshold for list MPs; removing one electorate seat coat-tailing and lowering the party vote percentage from five to four per cent in compensation. The criticism around the electorate seat threshold all of a similar vein; parties were abusing the rule, it gave voters in a particular electorate more say over the outcome of an election, it was unfair and so on and so forth. A lot of people were opposed to the rule, which was no doubt fuelled by the on-going saga of last year’s Tea Party at the Urban Cafe in Newmarket. What this criticism of the electorate seat threshold seems to ignore is the effect it has on “wasted vote”. An electorate seat threshold reduces the number of wasted votes by counting the party vote of any party that’s won an electorate seat. MMP was formed on the back of criticism of the First Past the Post system, which resulted in an unfair allocation of votes. This was particularly seen at the 1981 general election
I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT AS GOOD AS MY DAD. THANKS FOR PLAYING. I’m just like you. Logical corollary: we’re both just like Tina Fey. The first page of her 2011 book Bossypants heralds the absolute humdinger “Perhaps you’re a parent and you bought this book to learn how to raise an achievement-oriented, drug-free virgin adult. The secrets, let me tell you, are a strong father figure, bad skin, and a childsized colonial lady outfit.” A recurring theme in my own life has been the importance of my relationship with my father. The photo of him in my wallet is only kind of a joke. Accordingly, Tina Fey’s validation was worth a lot more than the $25 cost of Bossypants would indicate. My dad has been one of my best pals for a few years now. I used to cry to him on weekends when I didn’t get invited to stuff and was forced to spend my Saturday nights compulsively munching aniseed balls, watching endless Sex and the City series and suffering subsequent existential crises because it transpires I am a Miranda. At least small breasts mean that I can easily mimic her turtlenecks. Optimism IS just a doctor’s visit away. The main reason for our closeness is textbook: we think similarly. My mother calls
us callous and emotionally stunted (read: Of course, he is not perfect. Although the “all about the Benjamins.”) Clearly, she has subject matter of the mixed signals my dad mistaken rationalism for something far more sends me is less racy, I challenge you to sinister, while simultaneously forgetting that reconcile “I just want you to be happy” with said Benjamins (whose sad kiwiana cousin, “If you become the Economist’s Middle East Ernest, lacks the requisite swag) paid for her correspondent, I will be proud of you.” He last facial. Perhaps she is still bitter about is also a big proponent of the one word text returning from a tense 2006 family holiday message, and is loath to pay for anything. in Sydney and being mistaken by a Customs Sounds like your relationship, if a little more official for the grandmother that my father Gaza strip than landing strip. and his apparently much younger bride had If you are ever a parent, and your twenty-yearcharitably taken on holiday. The reassurance old daughter asks for a hug, the response “for “Relax, Mum, at least God’s sake, leave us we’re prematurely ageing alone—can’t you get a "...my father is actually together” did little to abate always right. The man knows boyfriend?” is probably her ire. ever ything. The second longest justified—but MAN Admittedly, it pisses me river in Chile. Airline pricing at ALIVE IT IS HARD off when people think that TO HEAR. While it the margins..." their parents are always unnerves my father right. I wish the reason when I tell him that the for this were the unsoundness of blindly reason I remain single is because I don’t enjoy espousing anyone else’s views without really any male company more than I do his, it is a considering them. It is not. It is because their necessary conviction: how else to reinforce the parents’ views differ from my father’s, and my frazzled thread of hope that ‘maybe it’s not father is actually always right. The man knows my personality’? I think I need to lie down. The everything. The second longest river in Chile. deafening ticking of my biological clock is giving Airline pricing at the margins. The reason that me a migraine. we don’t grow bananas on Mount Cook.
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SCIENCE
DOING SCIENCE BY FUCKING SHIT UP
what's it up to?
BAS SUCKLING
People seem to have this perspective that scientific discoveries are an intricate magic created by genius wizards, however the truth is not quite so glamourous. Though there are many amazing discoveries that are the result of hard work and incredible intelligence and logic, there are also some pretty fantastic fuckups or accidents that result in important discoveries. On a September morning in 1928, Alexander Fleming sat at his work bench at St. Mary’s Hospital in Scotland after having just returned from a vacation with his family. Before he had left on vacation, Fleming had piled a number of his Petri dishes to the side of the bench so that someone else could use his work bench while he was away. Many of the dishes had been contaminated with various cultures. Fleming placed each of these in an ever growing pile in a tray of Lysol (disinfectant). He was sorting through the pile when his former assistant, stopped by to visit. Fleming
took this opportunity to bitch about how hard it was not having an assistant. To demonstrate, Fleming rummaged through the large pile of plates and pulled out several that had remained safely above the Lysol. Had there not been so many, each would have been submerged in Lysol, killing the bacteria to make the plates safe to clean and then reuse. While picking up one particular dish to show Pryce, Fleming noticed something strange about it. While he had been away, a mould had grown on the dish. That in itself was not strange. However, this particular mould seemed to have killed the Staphylococcus aureus that had been growing in the dish. Fleming realised that this mould had potential. Though he identified the mould (Penicillium) with help from a mycologist, he wasn’t able to isolate the active element that was killing the bacteria. He called it Penicillin, published a paper on it and moved on.
FLASH FORWARD 12 YEARS In 1940, the second year of World War II, two scientists at Oxford University, Australian Howard Florey and German refugee Ernst Chain began working with penicillin. Using new chemical techniques, they were able to produce a brown powder that kept its antibacterial power for longer than a few days. Needing the new drug immediately for the war front, mass production started quickly. The availability of penicillin during World War II saved many lives that otherwise would have been lost due to bacterial infections in even minor wounds. Penicillin also treated diphtheria, gangrene, pneumonia, syphilis and tuberculosis. All of this was possible because he didn’t do the dishes before he left, something I think we can all take away from this story. Who knows what fantastic discovery is going to appear the next time you fuck up?
R E S E T T H E R E C O RDS NICK CROSS
Disgraced Belarusian shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk only managed to rob Valarie Adams of her Olympic gold medal for a week. But drug cheats have almost certainly robbed her of something more important for her entire career: the opportunity to set a world record. How do I know this? There is no way to be 100 per cent sure, but the case is compelling. The world record in women’s shot put is 22.63 metres, set by Natalya Lisovskaya of the former Soviet Union in 1987. Since 1990 only 3 women have thrown within 1.3 metres of that record, one is Ostapchuck. All three of those women have been found guilty of doping at some point in their careers. The only other athlete to thrown within 1.4 metres of the world record is Valarie Adams, who threw 21.24 metres in 2011. Of the top 30 throws of all time, 25 were by two Eastern European women in the 1980s.
The phenomenon of 1980s dominance isn’t limited to shot put. Probably worst effected sport is discus, where the top 23 throws of all time were by Eastern Europeans in the 1980s. This century, no one has even thrown close to within seven metres of the world record, and the only athlete to get within 7.5 metres has been suspended for doping. Of the 23 track and field events contested at this year’s Olympics, 11 have women’s world records set in the 1980s. These are often referred to as the ‘untouchable records’, set in the drug-riddled 1980s of athletics. Testing regimes used to be a lot less sophisticated and far more corrupt which led to prolific doping. In East Germany athletic doping was not just done in secret, it was state policy. In 1977 the main testing laboratory in East Germany was passed into government control, and between then and 1989, 12,000 tests were conducted, not a single one ever leading to an official 15
sanctioning; athletes with detectable levels of steroids were withdrawn from competition, usually through ‘injuries sustained while training’. Athletes as young as 14 were fed pills and injections, often without their knowledge or consent. Within a short space of time the whole system collapsed: in December 1989 the Anti-Doping Council of Europe was created to ensure much more rigorous testing of athletes. And between 1989 and 1991 the Eastern bloc collapsed, ending some of the corrupt regimes. But for the athletes of the 1980s having some massive advantage we would have every reason to expect their records to be broken: better technology and understanding of the human body has allowed stronger performances in almost all other areas of sport. But the untouchable records of the 1980s remain just that. There is only one solution: reset them and allow modern athletes a fair chance at making history.
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THE FREEDOM AND THE FURY THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF TRANSGRESSIVE ART FAIROOZ SAMY
“In ten years, there’s one question nobody’s ever asked me. Why is this art?” MARINA ABRAMOVIC Transgressive art, by definition, is meant to be shocking. It’s disgusting, vile, and a degradation of everything that society holds sacred. By peeling back the veneer of normalcy and expectation, transgressive art aims to challenge norms and raise questions, all in the name of reflective vision. This is art’s raison d’etre, but in the age of stylised violence and hack entertainment, are artists going too far? 16
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ARTS sheet while passersby watched curiously. In their roles as the audience, not one member of the public approached Burden in any way. After forty-five hours (during which Burden soiled himself) a young museum employee took pity on the artist, placing a water pitcher within his reach. With this, “...the audience cut me with a knife Burden rose and smashed the across the neck and drank my blood. clock. It might seem pointless They carried me, half naked, to the at first glance, but Doomed table and slammed the knife down exposed the ridiculousness of between my legs, into the wood...” the ‘viewer role’. In assuming that the audience shouldn’t mess with the art, almost everyone relinquished the ethics and responsibilities that they would usually have upheld, leaving Burden to stew in his own excrement and hunger without questioning whether the value of the work outweighed the value of his life. In a similar vein, famed artist Marina Abramovic sat motionless in a room with 72 different objects of pain and pleasure, and a sign inviting guests to use whichever ones they wanted on her unyielding body. Among the objects were feathers, roses, whips, knives, and a gun with a single bullet. Abramovic’s passive role was a reaction to the criticisms that artists were too sensationalist and masochistic, passing their own egos off as social commentary. The audience’s initial gentility was soon replaced by malice, beginning with the removal of Abramovic’s clothes and culminating in the gun being pointed at her head. FACING THE DRAGON
Performance art is one of the more representational—and confusing—expressions of public subversion, but takes its place in the museums of the world as important social critique. If you thought Gotye’s music video for ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ was conceptual, you should meet Chris Burden. Possibly the poster boy for misunderstood genius (and the face of the controversial art community of the '70s) Burden captured the public’s attention with his series of dangerous performances. On November 17th, 1971, Burden unleashed 'Shoot', his most infamous work to date. Acting on orders from the artist, Burden’s friend took aim at his left arm and with his long rifle, fired a single bullet. When asked why he did it, the answer he gave in ’71 was “to be taken seriously.” In 2012 however, Burden qualifies his actions as a reaction against social conditioning. “There are always two sides to a coin. Society is usually fixated on only one side of the coin... Being shot is considered by society to be a bad thing and to be avoided at all costs. Sometimes it is of some interest to flip the coin and face the dragon head on.” Burden would later go on to be nailed to a Volkswagen and be hung upside down and naked in a school gym. For his 'Doomed' museum installation, Burden set a clock by the floor, and lay motionless beneath a glass
“It was real horror”, she later said, “the audience cut me with a knife across the neck and drank my blood. They carried me, half naked, to the table and slammed the knife down between my legs, into the wood”. Abramovic’s experiment showed that anyone, from the most cultured of audiences to the random museum goer, could descend in to acts of pseudo torture when presented with a body that wouldn’t fight back. After the performance finished—six hours later—Abramovic recalls that the audience were suddenly terrified. “When it was over, I started walking towards the audience, naked, bloody, with tears in my eyes. Everybody ran away, literally ran out of the door”. There are those that think this type of behaviour is insanely self-destructive, a gateway to even more absurd and dangerous, antics. Yet for Burden, Abramovic, and their critics, the transgressiveness of their art is what makes it important, and elevates it to the realm of artistic validity. WHEN THE OTHER SHOE DROPS
Though the critics love a high-minded conceptual piece, transgressive art really finds its niche in the perverse. Author Peter Sotos has been vilified for his novels, which depict sexual violence and sadistic paedophilia in a first-person narrative. While he’s been accused of being a predatory scumbag, Sotos insists that his work isn’t self-indulgent and
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that his motives come from a good place. His 2005 novel Comfort and Critique recounts the kidnapping and murder of 8-year-old Sarah Payne, and Sotos attempts to critique the press through a mixture of philosophical interpretation and uncomfortable sexual musing. “You don’t get news reports that are devoid of spin and you don’t get news reporters who don’t wink at you because of that”, he says, “I’m far more interested in how that thinking creates the bodies and personalities it reports on.” In that regard, he claims that his work exposes how the 8-year-old victim became “the product that the news wanted”, albeit in the most blood-chilling way possible. His sound collage, 'Buyer’s Market', compiled graphic interviews from law enforcement officials, parents, and abused children detailing their experiences with the child sex-trafficking industry. It’s a difficult listen, sparking everything from disgust, terror, and empathy. “Most art, literature, music, journalism is blurred by a selfish interest in earning a living”, explains Sotos. He contrasts himself to the many artists who “pretend that they’re offering an objective honesty”, citing his interest in “how that fluidity seeps into concepts of respect, love, sympathy, and otherwise”. The Vienna Actionists have also smashed boundaries in the name of art. The four avant-garde artists associated with the movement (Otto Mühl, Günter Brus, Rudolf Schwarzkogler and Hermann Nitsch) broke every decency law there was by using the naked body as a vessel for violence and sacrilege. Nitsch’s Das Orgien Mysterien Theater was an indictment against the disengagement in affluent societies, which he chose to express by flinging pig flesh and blood over the naked members of his audience. When asked what other types of animals he’d like to incorporate in to his work, Nitsch’s reply was human cadavers. “I’ve been trying for years to procure a human body for my theatre”, he claimed, “Universities for medicine can have cadavers for their research, why can’t an artist also have access to such tools?” His colleague, Brus, takes this symbolism to extremes. In protest of the limitations placed upon the body, he makes images that depict extreme pain. Twisted genitalia, men covered in faecal matter, a face cut in half, hands nailed to the wall, his own self-destruction laid bare in difficult-to-stomach statement pieces. At least The Viennese Actionists were respected artists. In the world of underground punk— often seen as less ‘legitimate’ than other mediums—GG Allin was notorious. As the self-professed embodiment of transgression, Allin made it his mission to live life as controversially as possible. His lyrics—hateful, racist, misogynistic— complemented his on-stage antics, many of which involved flinging his own faeces at the audience and threatening suicide. He went to
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ARTS jail for lighting a woman on fire and insisted on being buried as he was—covered in faeces and booze. To most people, Allin seems dangerous, if not insane, and deriving any artistic value from his life would be a stretch. But to his legions of fans, he represented an antiauthoritarian, extreme-individualist viewpoint, and is still hailed as a pillar of transgressive punk. Leaving Allin in the dust though, is film maker Fred Vogel. His movies embrace everything that repulses society, and in terms of artistic credibility, he’s at the bottom of the heap. Vogel’s August Underground trilogy are fauxsnuff exploitation films that follow a pair of serial killers as they rape, decapitate and torture their way through the movies. The acts caught on tape—and shot home-video style—are so realistic that it’s difficult to believe their fictional nature. It’s been suggested that Vogel’s presentation of human behaviour at its worst will provoke emotion that’s rarely brought to the surface. Some will feel disgust and helplessness while others may be shocked to discover that they’re curious, or fascinated by the gore. Commentators have pointed out that it might be a counter-attack on our desensitisation to standard horror films, and that by allowing us to experience the terror of murder in the most realistic way possible, Vogel’s audience will be forever changed. At some point, fans have argued, sadistic mayhem transcends in to something more than the sum of its parts. While Vogel’s vision will never hit the mainstream, there’s still the issue of why we can tolerate an image of selfmutilation in a museum and herald it as an expression of genius, but revile a low-grade torture film that uses the same motifs. Society is perturbed by almost any digression from the norm, but for some reason, we’ll give ‘serious artists’ the benefit of the doubt. Maybe society is drawing the line of decency. What’s more likely though, is that we won’t let go of our cultural limits. Above all, transgressive art reminds us that everything—especially art—operates within a system of privilege and prejudice. Just like life.
THE WALL OF WEIRD: Seven sins, seven pieces
ANDRES SERRANO’S 'PISS CHRIST'
MARCUS HARVEY’S 'MYRA' Myra Hindley and her partner murdered five children between the ages of 10-17, and her wall-sized portrait was created using the handprints of children. When it opened at the Royal Academy of Art, protestors lined up to egg it.
In 1989, Serrano dropped a tiny plastic Christ-on-the-cross in to a cup of his own urine and took a photo of it. Despite winning an award, the picture raised hell in America and sparked a debate about artistic freedom that had the US senate reeling.
GREG TAYLOR’S 'LIZ AND PHIL DOWN BY THE LAKE' PATRICIA PICCININI’S 'STILL LIFE WITH STEM CELLS' As a commentary on the consequences of genetic engineering, Piccinini photographed a young girl playing with pieces of human tissue.
RENEE COX’S 'YO MAMA’S LAST SUPPER' Thanks to The Da Vinci Code, every man and his grandma knows about 'The Last Supper', and Cox’s take was to reinterpret it with eleven Black men, a white man, and naked Cox herself as Jesus.
Taylor, an Australian conceptual artist, sculpted Queen Elizabeth and hubby Phil sitting naked in front of Canberra’s Parliament. After a week of vandalism (and an incident where the queen was beheaded) the piece was removed, but its infamy lives on.
DAVID CERNY’S 'SHARK' This one is noteworthy for two reasons- it’s a parody of Damine Hirst’s famous “The physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”, and it features a nearnaked replica of Saddam Hussein floating in formaldehyde.
JOEL PETER-WITKIN’S 'LOVE AND REDEMPTION'
“Twisted genitalia, men covered in faecal matter, a face cut in half, hands nailed to the wall, his own self-destruction laid bare in difficultto-stomach statement pieces.”
In perhaps the most gruesome item on this list, Peter-Witkin’s photo shows a dismembered human arm clutching a clock and some grapes to represent how death can set us free. The US government didn’t agree with his vision, so Peter-Witkin fled south of the border to produce the disturbing image.
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TO D D AT T I C U S
You could travel the world, but nothing comes close to the Golden Coast, 2011, JPEG image. Todd Atticus graduated from Falmouth College of Arts in 2009. He has exhibited in the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and now lives in Wellington. In January 2011 he helped curate New Times Roman, an exhibition of contemporary art in Jane Austin’s regular chapel of worship.
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JESSAMYM GEMMING
Cactus Bloom, 2012, collage. Jessamyn Gemming graduated from Manukau Institute of Technology in 2010. She regularly exhibits art in Auckland and is involved with artist run spaces, including Artstation in Ponsonby. In 2011 Gemming cocurated Thou Shalt Not Art on Sundays as part of Southside Arts festival. She produces collage and has recently been collaborating on pieces with fellow Auckland artist Amy Potenger.
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Uther Dean is, as of 8.51pm on the Sixteenth of August 2012, listening to Laurie Anderson's O Superman on Youtube. He used to edit Salient, sometimes writes plays, and isn't wearing shoes. He tweets as @utherlives.
UTHER DEAN
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In Wellywood Winter, dull midday in city limits, drizzling protestant-grey, grinding traffic and slumped wrung-out tenements sinking to their knees along tarmac-patched, pot-holed pavements. The warehouses stare like juries of peers or like the P-addled drifters, washed-up in piss-stinking corners, glazed gazes impartial as justice, impersonal as eyes in bronze statues; the soup kitchen succours the maimed, the aged and infirm, dumb-founded rejects of a soulless time, blanket boys sleep between the Courtney Place feet lulled by traffic in the hurrying streets. Hush, while the street people sleep; the unemployed, the factory tradesman and piece worker, the cabinet maker, lecturer, delivery boy and dressmaker, the policeman and prostitute, the drinker, tailor, soldier, politician, the breathless cray divers and the abandoned wives. Never-young girls with gutters for pillows dream treasures of rocks and weed attended by searchlights and sirens along the corridors of the welfare state while prospects dream-invade mansions of the one-percent right and the stolen land and sea, and the air-brushed perfection of idols, blinding on buses and bill-boards, passes by without notice as the dry-nosed pi dog pack shivers waiting its turn in the night and well-fed rats stalk pigeons through the small park, just for the thrill of it.
MERCEDES WEBB-PULLMAN
Mercedes Webb-Pullman returned to NZ in 2008 after almost 40 years away. She gained her MA in Creative Writing with IIML Victoria University in 2010. Poems have appeared online in Turbine, 4th Floor, The Electronic Bridge, Blackmail Press and Swamp, and in print in various collections. She lives on the Kapiti coast.
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LANCE CASH
Untitled from ‘For James Hansen’s Grandchildren’.Digital photographic print on matte paper, 841 × 1189mm. Lance Cash is a Wellington-based artist, who alongside his BA in English and Geography creates large hyperdigitalised photographic works.This work is an untitled piece from his solo exhibition held earlier this year at Enjoy Public Art Gallery,‘For James Hansen’s Grandchildren’. This work and others in the series are digital photographic montages constructed exclusively out of hyper-manipulated photographs of the water cycle; such as clouds, rain, oceans, lakes and mist.
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STACKS ON STACKS ON SAX A CONVERSATION WITH WELLINGTON'S MOST PROLIFIC ARTS PHILANTHROPIST D U N C A N M c L AC H L A N
On the fifth floor of the regal Harbour City Tower, enveloped by the archaic grandeur that is Kirkaldie and Stains, I meet him in his office. Tiled walls, maroon carpets, frosted glass; the building is a relic from a golden age. Hidden in the midst of this building is the office of Denis Adam. With the mechanism of the Adam foundation, Denis, along with his wife Verna, have reinvigorated the arts scene in New Zealand.
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ARTS Foundation supports both individual artists and art projects: the Adam Concert Hall, the Adam Art Gallery, the NZSO National Youth Orchestra, cartoonist Tom Scott, playwright Dave Armstrong; it is an inexhaustible list. It was this immense philanthropy that had intrigued me. For Mr Adam, “the arts need funding as a lifeblood. Without people who can manage to support the arts financially, they wither.” Denis is adamant on this. Those with wealth have an obligation to the artistic community.
When I find him, he is sitting perched behind his desk: carefully combed grey hair and coiffed moustache: a grey suit, three piece of course, gleaming silver tie bar on silk red tie to match his fountain pen neatly nestled on his suit. Mr Adam, it seems, has remained unscathed from the onslaught of a commercial, corporate world: his attire, the oil paintings on the wall, the carafe by his desk all indicate a care that is lost in today’s bluster. Denis Adam sits next to me, legs crossed as I begin my interview, readjusting his hearing aid—a harsh ailment for one who has lived with such a love for sound. The Adam
arts scene which he maintains is the roots of the vibrancy of Wellington today. The amateur Unity Theatre, recalls Adam, was creating a buzz within Wellington. It was that culture of amateurism which made possible the professional scene today. Those same artists grew up and laid the foundations of today’s theatre. Hence, Circa, Downstage and BATS.
You can tell Mr Adam is very proud of Wellington. He calls it quite earnestly “the arts capital” of New Zealand (Auckland, he says, is “the commercial capital”, but he is, rightly or wrongly, disinterested in that feat). Born in Berlin, but raised in London, Mr Adam Moreover, he believes the vibrancy of art in considers an artistic tradition in Wellington is a product of our “You have to his family the foundation for his demographic. We have a large create a society philanthropy. His grandmother number of “educated” individuals where not only and mother were both amateur with an interest in the arts. We can people painters. His brother was a film have a large “percentage of the experience art director who had his movies population who participate in but also where made in Hollywood. Though he you can be the arts”, whether that be going can’t play an instrument himself, it successful as an to shows and performances was this culture of artistic interest artist.” or playing an instrument. We and expression that engendered demand art to be put on. in Denis an obligation to give back. Why not more art? Of course a great benefit of any philanthropy Art is expensive. Mr Adam is clear on this, is seeing the fruits of your charity. On this especially forms such as opera and ballet. It issue, Denis Adam is self-effacing, downplaying is a boring reality. Denis’ private philanthropy his efforts. He sits meekly in his chair, should be cherished but it can’t be expected hunched slightly with age. His voice is soft and to fill the whole funding gap. That is a task of immediately modest. central and local government. For if we accept He tells me of his support for John Chen, now that the government should play a role in a brilliant concert pianist. Denis and Verna enhancing our civic life (and those who would saw him playing in the Adam Chamber Music like to privatise playgrounds will disagree with School in Nelson and were taken by him. Since this premise) then it should do so actively. then, seeing the development of his natural You have to create a society where not only talent was “pretty satisfying”. But, and Mr can people experience art but also where you Adam intently focuses at this point, the Adam can be successful as an artist. And the New Foundation is “only to provide a medium Zealand Symphony Orchestra is a pertinent in which they can perfect their art. It can’t example of this: bulk-funded and now worldprovide talent. The talent has to be there.” renowned. Denis Adam takes pride in the success of But our approach to most other art forms those he has supported but doesn’t begin to claim ownership of them. It seems evident that is quite the contrary. In opera, we pay extortionate fees to hire an Australian or this philosophy exists in contrast to the more European singer at the expense of many traditional American model of philanthropy successful New Zealand singers. We rest where charity is image conscious: benefactors comforted with the knowledge that there is seek personal gain from their kindness. That’s a ballet touring, even if it isn’t our ballet. We not Adam’s style. force our graduates overseas in search of Mr Adam is certainly from a different, bygone work in idealistic Paris, knowing that although era. The grand painting of his uncle on his Wellington may be the arts capital, it is only office wall reflects his grounding in family and the capital for the consumer. It is a bizarre class. These features are generally considered catch-22 where we want art but we don’t defects of our history, entrenching poverty and want to pay for artists. Mr Adam is right that rights based on your last name. Yet, amidst all “nobody ever reaches the pinnacle”. There is that, it created people such as Denis Adam. always more we can add to colour our cultural People who don’t rest on personal success. life, but in a world of deficit reduction and a Yes he maintains sartorial care and drives a moneyed dogmatism, it is doubtful whether smart Rolls Royce but his philanthropic efforts we are doing enough. are, too, truly exceptional. What is important Denis Adam’s office won’t be there much is that he considers it a duty, an obligation longer. Contact Energy have bought the to your fellow artist; to the community of building. He has been ordered to vacate. Wellington. He’s not just being nice or giving Progress, they call it. back for personal gain. Denis arrived in Wellington in January 1947, having married his Ashburton-born wife Verna in London. Here, he encountered an emerging 25
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CHANDRA MILLER
Fuck Shoes, 2012, collage. Originally from Nelson, like all things good, Chandra Miller moved to Wellington to pursue photography at Whitirea. More of his work can be viewed at http://goo.gl/v4rZP
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ARTS So it basically went like this. Me and Tom had been drinking for a couple of hours in his room, playing some Halo and just generally mucking around and shit, when we get this text saying that Haley’s parents have gone away on a surprise holiday so her place is free for the weekend and some serious shit is going to go down party-wise in the next couple of hours or so. It was going to be a quiet night in, but Haley is a good bitch and her parents' house is fucking huge—her dad is like an investment banker or something, so they’re pretty fucking loaded—so we knew we had to scratch those plans and get there ASAP. It was around eight thirty at this point, and we had said to Tom’s parents that we were just going to have a couple of beers and just generally hang out and shit, so we had to figure out a way to get around his parents and get to this party. Tom had gotten into trouble earlier in the week because he had failed his Biology internal and had been banned from going out until after exams were over. We had to go past them through the living room to get out to the car—there was no way of getting around that; we knew they would check in on us before they went to bed—so we just told them that we were going to go to McDonald's to grab a bite to eat and that we would be back real soon. Tom’s dad said that we had been drinking and that there was no way we could drive, but I said that I had a cold and actually hadn’t been drinking so it was all good that I drove. He said that I didn’t look that sick but I said that I was recovering, that’s why I was looking better, and that I just wanted to take it easy and not drink too much or anything like that, so that’s why I wasn’t actually heading out anywhere tonight and was just going to stay in with Tom for a casual night in. I don’t really like lying to Tom’s parents, because they’re actually really nice people and generally pretty cool, but sometimes you just have to do things like that to get out, you know? Once they finally gave up asking, we headed out and heading off to grab some brews and some weed and probably pick up Jaime depending on whether that useless fuck would text us back or not. Tom’s parents usually headed to bed at around nine on a Friday night to get up early for their Saturday morning walk so we knew that we would be sweet to go after that. So we picked up Jaime—who had been texting this girl he had been keen to fuck for a while but was a bit frigid, and had convinced her to go too—and went and got a tinny from this dodgy as place that Tom would go to all the time. That’s actually a story in of itself, but
I don’t have time to tell you about it now. So we grabbed the tinny and Tom started rolling up after we had got a 24 box and I drove us to this fucking massive house on the side of the steep road that Haley lived on. It had a mean view during the day, I had been there before actually, being on the hilltop, but it was night now so there was nothing you could see. It was just past ten and the place was fucking chaotic. There were kids and cars everywhere, and the place was overrun with people. There were a whole heap of guys jumping over the fence and the massive hedges to get in because there were a couple of huge cunts— who we knew—standing at the gate just generally checking out the scene and seeing who was coming in and shit. It was fucking chaotic, and we knew that it was going to be shut down pretty soon, it was inevitable in this neighbourhood that someone had already called the cops, but you just want to go in and see some shit go down sometimes, you know? So we head in and the j we had smoked on the way in was starting to kick in, so I was feeling pretty relaxed, and just sat down on the couch and started getting through some brews and talking shit to the boys and just flirting with some girls and that general kind of shit that you do. Someone started running around with a glass mirror and some lines, comes up to me and asks me if I’d like a bump, which all and all was a bit fucking clichéd but you know it was a Friday and I was pretty keen to have a big one so it was going to get a bit out of control and so I started wandering around the house and everything started to get a bit blurry and I walked past the bathroom where I was gunna take a piss and saw Jaime getting a bj from that chick and I was thinking good on him, but then I thought I had better get in on the action so I saw this girl who I’d been flirting with and grabbed her and said that we should fuck and she told me to fuck off and smashed my beer out of my hand which just smashed all over the wooden floor and everyone turned and was like “ooooh!” which I didn’t mind so much but I was a bit fucked off so I headed outside to have a durrie and found Tom who hadn’t had much luck on the girl front either so we just sat outside watching some dumb cunts trying to restart this car, they were all drunk as fuck and laughing their heads off and shit trying to restart this car pushing it up the hill and so Tom and I are just bitching about shit and having some drunken ramblings and then all of a sudden the car lurches forward and explodes into gear, and a couple of the guys who had been standing in front of the car and on the bonnet just got bowled over and
started screaming and shit, so we ran out and went to go see what had happened, because we could see it from the house, and we just saw all of these people standing around and doing nothing except for a couple of girls who were bawling their eyes out and the guys were still screaming and one guy was like “fucking hell man reverse the fucking car man you’re fucking crushing him man” and we looked down at the car and one guy had smashed into the bonnet head first and was bleeding from his head really bad and then there was one guy lying on the ground in front of the car who had been hit really hard and he had a couple of his mates crowding around him with one guy who reckoned he knew what to do trying to do some CPR and some other guy was just running around yelling that someone should call an ambulance and so we saw what was under the car and under the chassie was this guy that was just lying there and he was bleeding pretty bad but worse was that he wasn’t moving at all and he just looked white and his eyes looked dead and so I started to freak out and that’s when the siren from the cop car just burst up the road and everyone started running and so we left that poor cunt to die and we just ran and I grabbed Tom and we ran to the car and I just burst off down the road and we somehow got back to Tom’s place even though I was high and drunk and stoned and shit and we were just like what the fuck just happened and we started getting these texts from people who were like “you didn’t see me there” and all of this shit and it was all a bit much so we smoked the last j as we were sitting outside Tom’s house, just right in the middle of the street, and it was like two in the morning, and we just smoked and smoked and smoked some more and all we could do was start laughing.
LATE NIGHTS
M AT H E W M A R T I N
Mat Martin, 22, is originally from Auckland. He is in his fifth and final year of studying law and politics, and is pretty jaded about the world now as a result. He attended in the Iowa Summer Workshop at the IIML, and is more certain than ever that he is supposed to be a writer. This is his first published work.
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THINKING INSIDE THE BOX The humble BA is studied and derided in equal measures—the subjective elements rile the quantitative-natured BSc students, often offend the utilitarian sensibilities of the BE ilk, and make the BCA crowd crimson with cost-benefit analyses. This week, Salient investigates whether there are any right answers to the subjects infamous for having “no wrong answers”.
‘The arts’ is a fantastically broad category, and for the purposes of this occasion the term shall refer to those specimens of the fine arts which can currently be studied at university level; theatre, music, writing, and (occasionally) visual art. At Victoria, the arts fall under the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Degrees in a number of arts subjects—film, music and theatre—may be completed under Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Music programmes. Victoria’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) offers a Master of Arts programme in script writing and writing, and a PhD in creative writing. Problems arise in the classification of certain
To IIML PhD student and Massey University creative writing tutor Pip Adam, “constraint is always good for creativity”—though she isn’t referencing constraint in terms of class sizes as McKinnon was—“having to fit my work to meet university requirements and culture has produced some really exciting exercises in craft and teaching”. For Adam, university is a place where one can be “cross-pollinated by other disciplines,” and in that sense university is a productive environment for the arts—Adam shares a hallway with psychology scholars, script writers, linguists, statisticians and ESOL teachers. “I learn a lot from them and their views definitely bleed into my work,” she says, inadvertently echoing McKinnon’s emphasis on interaction.
Grading is a fraught process, stuck between the rigid categoricalism of the standard university marking structure and the subjective disciplines, or ‘fluid arts’: the tension is a difficult one. Say you were walking around a gallery and asked to—in the most objective way possible—decide whether a painting achieves an A- (75 to 79 per cent) or a B+ (70 to 74 per cent). Would you be comfortable completing such as exercise? When it comes to academics, everyone has what McKinnon calls “their own knowledge frameworks and personal epistemology,” and it’s sometimes difficult for the outsider to see “Say you were how this can translate into a letter arts, and it’s a line in the sand which walking around categorisation. While the structure seems largely arbitrary. At Victoria, a gallery and of McKinnon’s courses mean he theatre, film, English, and media asked to—in the has a wealth of data to draw from studies fall under the same banner, most objective when assigning grades, grades while at the University of Otago way possible— are not the aim for his students; music, theatre, and performing decide whether more important is ensuring that arts share the same school. At a painting “positive learning and long term Harvard, arts offerings are split achieves an Aretention” occur. He worries that … or a B+...” between the Department of Music “studying for assessment pressure and the Department of Visual and [rather than] intrinsic pleasure can switch deep Environmental Studies. While no consensus learning to surface learning”, but does stress exists on which domain of the university that “assessments are important and must be framework the arts belong, there is even less valid”. Adam believes “the idea of grading art evidence to support any consensus on how is always an uneasy one,” but “it's possible to they should operate within academia. rank, say, four short stories or eight poems in The current model of university study— some kind of order”. lectures and examinations at the core—has The way universities teach the arts reflects been standard practice since the 11th and their inherent subjectivity. Though no 12th centuries. While minor changes have quantification or cost-benefit analysis could naturalised themselves over time, no great do it justice, universities are institutions which revelation has occurred. do add significant value to artistic pursuits. Salient spoke to Victoria University theatre While there seldom is a ‘right’ method, the lecturer James McKinnon for a local exploration of processes and outcomes is just perspective. While McKinnon rejects the idea as important as the final product.
THE TROUBLE WITH TEACHING ART CHRIS McINTYRE
of a “standard model of teaching”, he does admit the university framework is restricting. Large class sizes and a lack of student-student contact (especially between, say 100-level and 300-level students) facilitate the difficulties he encounters. “Class size is an obstacle, creating relationships doesn’t occur until the latter stages [of a degree program]. Interaction between one another is the most important thing that can happen”.
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THE IMMIGRANT He seems to enjoy the ordinary sights of Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay. He’s never in any hurry, never in any hurry, and he’s never without a cigarette. He looks like a scholarly old boxer. Open-necked shirt, glinting silver specs, grey suit worn easily. He comes from a place where skins are darker and voices deeper, and his deep voice has been deepened by a lifetime’s smoking. It’s not impossible he’s grateful, at peace with himself and his situation (it looks that way to me). Nor are his brown hands entirely idle: in one he holds a burning cigarette; in the other, his prayer beads.
Geoff Cochrane is the author of numerous highly regarded collections of poems, two novels and two collections of short stories. In 2009 he was awarded the Janet Frame Prize for Poetry. This piece is from his latest collection The Bengal Engine’s Mango Afterglow, published by Victoria University Press available at www.victoria.ac.nz/vup or VicBooks.
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ROSE BURROWES
Rose Burrowes is a Wellington-based photographer studying arts at Victoria. She produces the weekly On Campus column with Matt White. This series of photographs were taken in Hong Kong.
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review
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music
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ART & MUSIC in Wellington
1. MALCOLM RIDDOCH
VARIATIONS IN ELECTROACOUSTIC FEEDBACK MASSEY GREAT HALL.
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LIVE SOUNDTRACK TO THE UNFINISHED 1949 FILM ASPIRING FILM ARCHIVE
3. MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO BAND BLUE HIGH
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4. LEN LYE
ROUNDHEAD
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SOUND CREATURE
FORTHCOMING RUSSIAN FROST FARMERS; MIGHTY MIGHTY
MY FAVOURITE ALBUM, EVER: THE LAUGHING STOCK OF SALIENT TALKS ABOUT LAUGHING STOCK P H I L I P M c S W E E N E Y ( M U S I C E D I TO R )
There comes a time in many small-talk situations when you move past talking about, say, adored pets and life plans (mine is to achieve a doctorate and then work at a supermarket with the name Dr Philip emblazoned on my name-badge) and start discussing music. From there, it’s only a matter of time until the question ‘what’s YOUR favourite album?’ rears its ugly head. I have had the same answer planned for years now--Talk Talk’s seminal album, Laughing Stock. But I always bluster around the issue. How can I rave about this obscure album without coming across as an insufferable douchequeef? Even worse: if the person I’m talking to is familiar with Talk Talk’s cheesy ‘80s pop without being aware of the dramatic aboutface they made towards the avant-garde, how do I retain my indie cred? If they ask me what genre it is, things get mystified further:I could describe it as ‘post-rock’, or ‘jazz’, or ‘easylistening’, or ‘shoegaze’ or ‘ambient’, and while none of these descriptors would be wrong per se, none of them would be accurate either. It’s a difficult album to put into words, but via the written form I hope to do it justice. The recording process of the album was complicated by frontman Mark Hollis’ eccentricity and perfectionism. He insisted that incense be burnt constantly, to get the ensemble of musicians he hired into the correct ‘mood’. He had a full jazz band improvise over a basic chord set for an entire day, and the only moment of those
recordings that made it onto the album was a mistake a violist made when her hands slipped (the obsessive that I am, I’ve identified that moment as popping up at 7:32 of ‘New Grass’). For days Hollis would barricade himself inside a room and listen to records by Can, Miles Davis and John Coltrane over and over, trying to absorb them. Essentially, Laughing Stock was painstakingly constructed and composed by a deranged man intent on achieving perfection. Knowing this, it astounds me that the album sounds as organic as it does. Hollis’ unrelenting perfectionism paid off; not a single arrangement sounds superfluous. The album begins with ‘Myrrhman’, which features perhaps the most haunting violin lick ever committed to tape. As the album progresses, the diversity of instrumentation and moods become apparent. ‘New Grass’ is the crowning achievement of the album, a sumptuous epic backed with Hollis’ lush guitar and drummer Lee Harris’ dependable percussive work. The instrumental passages are majestic, and the song seems to float by at a speed that belies its actual length. Having listened to it countless times, what minor flaws I perceived the album to have on earlier listens have been erased. Just as one comes to not just accept but embrace the flaws of a lover, the seventeen second silence that opens ‘Myrrhman’ and the bits in ‘Ascension Day’ that didn’t seem to go
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anywhere have transformed from nuisances into lovable quirks. Those searching for prescient reviews from the time of its release are going to be disappointed. While Melody Maker gave a positive review, they were tentative in their praise, and the NME went so far as to call it ‘pretentious’ and ‘horrible’. They’re the laughing stocks now(!). Cokemachineglow.com recently awarded it 99 out of a possible 100. Some critics see the darkness in it more than others; yet while the album has emotional heft, I’ve never considered it a depressing album. Instead I find its hollistic (Ha!) shape to be rejoiceful and redemptive. When the last note of ‘Runeii’ melts away, I feel cleansed more than dejected-- the album encapsulates human longings and moments of disquiet and transcends them with uplifting musical arrangements and contemplative production. Catharsis? More like CathARTsis! My favourite remark about the album, though, comes from YouTube. Commenter ‘Farcallo’ likened listening to Laughing Stock to “finding a new emotion”, and it’s an apt observation. If music as an art form is meant to inspire, challenge and reproduce human feelings and emotions in innovative and insightful ways, then Laughing Stock is the pinnacle in it’s conception, composition and execution. So it’s really good, basically. The Laughing Stock 20th Anniversary Re-Issue is available on vinyl at a record store near you.
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film
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THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
A DA M G O O DA L L ( A R T S E D I TO R )
others. That said, it remains an entertaining interrogation of the state of 21st century horror storytelling and authorship. Cutting between a quintet of attractive young twentysomethings on a weekend jaunt to the titular cabin and a trio of jaded techs working for an insidious unseen hierarchy, Cabin discusses the growing influence that the modern audience— or, at least, the system’s understanding of them—has over filmmakers and the stories they tell, and it does so with dry wit and measured cynicism (even if it isn’t as effective at that as Rubber was). But then, the film’s greatest successes aren’t to be found in the way it articulates its themes. Cabin is a hilarious, exceptionally tight horror-comedy in the vein of Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz. A plothole or two aside, the film’s narrative and comic craft is impressive. Whedon’s characteristically clever dialogue is delivered with panache by the most talented cast to ever work on a Whedon script (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford deserve special mention, stealing the film as a pair of snarky puppetmasters), every first act set-up has a third act pay-off, and Goddard’s direction injects the film with a giddy, authentic energy. It’s the kind of film that illustrates just how fun postmodernist cinema can be when done right. Full review available online!
In 1994, John Carpenter released In the Mouth of Madness, a film about a claims investigator (Sam Neill) tasked with locating a popular Stephen King-like author who has gone AWOL. His first stop—the sleepy town of Hobbe’s End, a hamlet with a dark secret. While not a commercial success, Madness was a highly delightful exercise in postmodern horror storytelling, an anarchic reflection on the relationship between the author, their art,
and their audience that consumes it. It’s interesting that, eighteen years later, Cabin in the Woods is getting called a ‘game-changer’ for doing something very similar. Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s canny horror-comedy will feel familiar to anyone with a passing interest in contemporary horror cinema—Cabin’s narrative games and thematic concerns recall Madness, Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber and Wes Craven’s Scream, among
Will tell your friends you had “problems in bed"
These week’s ratings scale in terms of how your significant other would react to the film.
Will gloat about your (imagined) sexual prowess, to reward you.
That “coffee” afterwards will actually be just coffee.
They might pay for your dinner.
Have you seen Fatal Attraction?
THE RATINGS
HIMIZU ERIKA WEBB
If your homeland was violently and unexpectedly wrecked, and your family missing or worse, would it be possible to convey the disintegration of your life with an unembellished story? Sion Sono’s Himizu centres on the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami last year with the addition of fantastical elements, which allow the film to
reach otherwise unattainable levels of horror and weirdness. Sono’s cruel post-apocalyptic Japan is adapted from a manga of the same name. Survivors, like typically brooding teenager Sumida, dream of wandering silently through infinite aisles of washed up debris. Appearing just as isolated and shell-shocked while awake, characters
are desperate to mend their lives. Sumida craves normality; to live as peacefully as a mole (himizu). Meanwhile he is continually assaulted by his drunken father, attacked by debt collectors from the Yakuza, and followed home by a girl from school. Keiko is obsessed with Sumida—‘I am a stalker,’ she admits gleefully, a ‘sutuku’. Even so, she is not left to be a dimensionless fanatic and develops into a volatile and admirable character. Keiko provides the film with much needed vibrancy that sullen, cold-blooded Sumida lacks. The two develop a violent relationship tied together with loss and fury. The film becomes increasingly painful to watch as characters slip into tortured madness, echoing the wounds and displacement suffered by those uprooted by the tsunami on March 11. Constant and sometimes graphic brutality pervades everyday interactions to the extent that it becomes a primary means of communication, and combined with the length of the film this could make difficult watching for some. Even so, the harrowing plot twists are enthralling and portrayed elegantly.
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new zealand film festival in brief 32
review
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books
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FREEDOM MARCUS GREVILLE
Written by Jonathan Franzen
Critical voices have asked where the angry writers are; where are the writers who challenge our comforts and understanding? Where are the social novels? Where are the writers that roar? With his new novel Freedom, Jonathan Franzen gives an excellent answer. With moral intelligence and surprisingly ribald wit Freedom’s characters ask us what liberty is. His characters are our limited and contradictory ideas of freedom. They play out the consequences of liberty, its realities and illusions. Franzen’s characterisations breathe detail and reality into his protagonists: Richard, a sardonic rock-god, self-indulgently railing
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against societal norms. Walter Berglund, the very personification of meliorism, confounded by his high ideals, is crippled by his inability to express the love or anger that fill him. And Walter’s wife, Patty, a self-loathing ex-athlete who doubts the validity and merit of her life; the Autobiographer, able to see the harm she does yet incapable of stemming the love that drives her harm. If the other characters are the currents of the novel, Patty is the body of water they run through. Patty expresses the constraints and expressions of freedom; all its complexity, damnation and beauty. Patty, and the extended Berglund family, is testament to the moments of perfect horror and beauty
video games Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. JEAN COCTEAU While film still has a long way to becoming art, the materials required to create a video game are almost as ubiquitous as the humble pen and pad. Practically anybody with (lots of) spare time and access to a computer can go about making a video game. This, coupled with the advent of the internet, means that indie game developers can create and distribute their work for little cost. While getting hold of a game for your PS2 a decade ago would set you back at least $100, there’s now a plethora of great games available online for less than a slice of Krishna cake. Here’s a few freebies to get you started:
Don’t Look Back Tough-as-nails, old-school platforming from the creator of the hit game vvvvvv. Based on the myth of Orpheus, the player travels to the underworld to rescue a loved one. Getting there’s hard enough, but getting out without looking back can be just as difficult.
FLASH IN THE PAN CALLUM McDOUGAL
gambolio.com/#/game-play:15977/
Super Karoshi Keeping the player’s character alive is of
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that make a life; moments emblazoned on personalities so deeply they can be passed through generations and societies like DNA. So, where have all the social novels gone? Who is it that’s roaring? Freedom is a great social novel—it is brilliant. But Franzen doesn’t roar—he places his hand gently on your left shoulder while whispering, calmly and kindly, in your left ear, until all you can see is the reality he describes. The novel is life bound in paper sheaths; an idea explored in a narrative of warmth and great intelligence, carried forward by characters of depth and profound flaw. It is an all-consuming narrative about how to live.
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utmost importance in most games. In Super Karoshi, the aim of the game is to die. Dark humour and incredibly tricky puzzles abound in this topsy-turvy platformer. gambolio.com/#/game-play:15663/
Distance More of a visual novel than a video game, Distance is the story of a couple in a longdistance relationship. The interaction in this game comes when the player chooses the topic of conversation in the couple’s nightly phone-calls. Multiple endings and a simple, elegant soundtrack make this one to play a few times. newgrounds.com/portal/view/556828
Lose/Lose Here’s one for the gamblers. A simple, Space Invaders-type game where the player shoots (passive) alien spacecraft for points. However, every time the player kills an alien, a random file is deleted from your computer. With the cost of aggression outweighing the potential benefits, the player is forced to question the typically-hostile nature of their actions in video games. stfj.net/art/2009/loselose/
arts
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theatre
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WHAT’S ON?
ABOUT
TOWN BATS Tiny Spectacle/Shitty Lyricism
By Joseph Harper Joseph Harper presents a double-bill of his one-man shows, Honey and The Boy and the Bicycle. Both have been praised by local reviewers, and Harper’s honest, personal approach to writing and performance is something to behold. Don’t miss it. 21 to 25 August, 8.00pm. Tickets: $15/10
CIRCA West End Girls
Written by Ken Duncum, directed by David O’Donnell The writer/director combo that brought us The Great Gatsby last year is back to present a new play based on the book by Barbara Tate. Adapted from her memoirs, the play follows Barbara as she takes a job as a prostitute’s maid and meets the impossible, adorable, self-destructive Mae, the Queen of Soho. See review. 8 August to 1 September, 6.30pm Tues and Wed, 8.00pm Thurs-Sat and 4.00pm Sun. Tickets $46/38/25 for <25
SKELLIG J O N A T H A N P R I C E ( T H E AT R E E D I T O R )
By David Almond, directed by Tabitha Arthur
David Almond’s acclaimed novel was a competitor to Harry Potter when it first hit the shelves, and in many cases was the critics’ preferred choice in the arena of magical realism for children. It has since been made into a film as well as this, the author’s own stage adaptation. Touching on themes of death, innocence and imagination, and referencing classical mythology, William Blake, the Bible and Darwin, the story is much closer to Phillip Pullman’s myth-making conception of children’s literature than J.K. Rowling’s. Michael has just moved into a new house with his parents. But no sooner has he begun exploring the precariously unstable garage than his mother goes into early labour. His baby sister is born with a dangerously weak heart, and thus (if you’ll excuse the crude metaphor) initiates the ticking time-bomb driving forward the plot. Michael wants to save his sister, and the only option seemingly available to him is to supplicate the strange creature he’s found in the garage. The creature calls himself Skellig, and he may or may not be an angel of death. It’s a very pretty story, and makes me want to go read the book. But in adapting his novel for the stage it appears Almond has had some difficulty stepping completely into the shoes of a playwright. Everything (and I truly mean everything) in this play is narrated. The plot, the settings, the characters’ actions; all is narrated by the cast so there is barely a moment where someone isn’t telling you what’s going on. Perhaps the author was anxious not to let any of his themes slip by the audience (and there is a potent concoction of
ideas at play here), but he has forgotten that theatre is a largely visual medium. It felt like I was watching not an adaptation of a novel, but a misguided attempt to stage a radio-play. That said, Tabitha Arthur and her team of designers and cast have done an admirable job of wading through the text, and the most important elements of the story make it through with them. Alex TarrantKeepa as Michael and Tameka Sowman as friend Mina do a great job conveying the young imagination leaping at new ideas and ideologies. Both actors forge a sensitive and believable relationship, and they demonstrated a remarkable acuity to their surroundings during a somewhat rusty opening night: knocks, bumps, and dropped props were duly acknowledged and incorporated into the reality of the play. The rest of the cast have less to work with, playing multiple roles and contending with a script that doesn’t know relationships can be built with action, as well as dialogue. Michael’s parents, played by Kenneth Gaffney and Lucinda Hare, suffer particularly in this respect, compounded by a real struggle among the actors to play above their age. The decision to cast a female in the role of Skellig is interesting but in this case not entirely successful, primarily because Jaci Gwaliasi is forced to adopt a scratchy, cartoonish growl which gets in the way of truly emotive voice work and which sounds downright painful for the actor. Crystalyne Willis’ design is a real stand-out feature of this production. The cardboard box set perfectly emblematises the world of potential a child’s imagination offers 34
IMPROV CAGE MATCH The Improvisors
Two teams have a maximum of half an hour split over three rounds to fight it out for the audience’s favour. Family friendly improvised goodness. 19 August to 7 October, 7.00pm Sundays. Tickets $18/15
TOI WHAKAARI Our Country’s Good
Written by Timberlake Wertenbaker, directed by Geoffrey Hyland The popular theatrical trope of “unusual cast of characters tries to put on a show in less than ideal circumstances” gets a colonial spin. This time the would-be thespians are the motley collection of convicts, marines, governors and crew that established the first penal colony in Australia. Won the Laurence Olivier Play Award in 1988. Features the talents of third-year Toi Whakaari acting students. 16 to 25 August, 7.00pm. Tickets: $10/15/22
up on moving day, and it doubles nicely as the ethereal world of Skellig’s garage. The puppets, too, were a joyful addition. Constructing a pair of blackbirds from gloves and gardening tools demonstrates the kind of transformativeness that is inherent to both the childhood imagination and the theatre. I was disappointed there wasn’t more. Despite its issues, the hearty story manages to wrestle away the disappointments. With such a short season, I hope the cast can find their footing a little more with this production and settle into something a little closer to a sense of ease. Granted, taking a pair of scissors to the script could be just as beneficial.
arts
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visual
arts
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CANVAS ON
CAMPUS
MUTTNIK, SRIWHANA SPONG MORGAN ASHWORTH
COLOUR AND LINE R O B K E L LY ( V I S U A L A R T S E D I TO R )
The two upstairs galleries of the City Gallery have just opened their new exhibits, providing the viewing public with a compelling comparison of the way in which composition and audience engagement affects the way in which a gallery space can operate. In the Hirschfeld Gallery Between Lines: Peter Gouge and Zoë Rapley the works of two very different artists have been juxtaposed to playfully incorporate the walls and the open space in an artistic conversation which the viewer is placed inside. Rapley’s work ‘Tract II’ is a long strip of paper, suspended from the wall, which unfolds lengthwise across the gallery space. Dotted around the surrounding walls Gouge’s small but visually emphatic works provide an interesting counterpoint to the whimsical simplicity expressed by Rapley’s work. The intensity of colour and composition in Gouge’s works is breathtaking in its complexity, but through his use of small cubes of colour they retain a sense of very clear direction and shape. When compared to the flowing form which they accompany, Gouge’s pieces have an inherent vibrancy which provides an interesting counterpoint to the placid nature of Rapley’s use of line. Through the wall line and colour are being translated onto a very different series of canvases, the skin and hair of the human body. Sui faiga ae tumau fa’avae takes the term installation to its extreme by installing a tattoo studio and barbershop into the gallery space. Three Tatau artists are feverishly at work in the space, creating a world of ambient sound with the intermittent hum of the needles
buzzing in the high sonorous space. It is a little daunting entering the Deane Gallery, it feels like you are invading a intensely private relationship between these extremely talented artists and their customers. This is quickly overcome by the friendly and engaging men, and yes it is a palpably masculine environment, who exude confidence and are clearly excited to be able to communicate their work and ethos to new people. The Taupou Tatau crew has been invited to temporarily close up their shop on the corner of Dixon and Victoria Streets and relocate to the Deane Gallery. They are still operating a commercial venture but have shifted it into the gallery context. The write up from the consistently innovative and personable curator of the Deane Gallery, Reuben Friend, focuses on the historical and cultural trends that this exhibition references. He goes into detail about the traditions of the pe’a and malu tattoos and explains how these artists have taken these traditions and contextualized them in the urban environment. It was summed up much more clearly by my wonderful guide, whose name I unfortunately forgot to ask, as a mash up of tradition and everything else. The three people receiving Tatau when I went in were all getting very different designs but the works all had an unmistakable Pacific flavor, were unique and were stunningly beautiful. Accompanying the business of the three booths is a massive graffiti mural containing the emblem of the group who is at work. The
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'Muttnik' is a 3 minute, 38 second video installed in the Kirk foyer. This work was originally installed at Anna Miles Gallery in Auckland, alongside batik cloths hung to form a shrine, but here stands alone, accompanied only by The Beatles’ ‘Dear Prudence’. The video shows footage of a series of sculptures made from everyday items, assembled in a suburban backyard landscape. We see a tower of apples, cigarettes, bottles arranged in tribute to traditional Balinese shrines. The lo-fi depiction of Spong’s ephemeral sculptures evokes a sense of nostalgia. Spong constructs this nostalgia in an attempt to navigate her uncertain links to her own Balinese heritage. The title, 'Muttnik', references the stray mutt dogs sent into space in Russia’s Sputnik programme, and captures Sriwhana’s personal inquiry into the unknown. Sriwhana Spong is one of New Zealand’s leading multimedia artists and is a finalist for this year’s Walters Prize.
other wonderful thing about this exhibit is the sense of family exuded by the participants. There about 15 people there when I popped my head in and the feeling of community in the space was not exclusive, I was immediately welcomed in. While it raises some interesting questions surrounding commercial art, the role of the viewer as a participant and where Pacifica art is heading, the real charm of this exhibit is the beauty of the works being created and the warmth and earnest fervor with which they are being realized. Both of these exhibitions approach the way in which line and colour can be utilized, in staggeringly different ways. I left with far more questions than I went in with in and in my eyes that’s a sign of an innovative exhibit; one which challenges assumptions and breathes life into the space. You can also go in for a new hairstyle from Killa Kutz, just book first at info@ taupootatau.com.
v u w s a & Frien d s
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BRIDIE HOOD
VUWSA Annual General Meeting So the time has finally come! After several columns of me raving about the Annual General Meeting and the Governance Review, this week members will have the opportunity to vote on the recommendations of the VUWSA Governance Review. And you will then all be saved from my tedious, while incredibly important, Governance Review Presidential columns! EVERYONE WINS! General Meetings are an incredibly important part of our democratic structure here at VUWSA. Constitutionally we have to hold a General Meeting once in Trimester One, and then again in Trimester Two. These meetings are a chance to let you know what we have been doing so far this year and are an important opportunity for you to ask the Executive any questions about their work this year. At the AGM, alongside moving the recommendations of the VUWSA Governance Review and an amended constitution (reflecting the changes of the Governance Review) we will also be putting forward our Half Year Report and Statement of Accounts. The Report includes all Executive members’ half year reports and provides specific detail about the work they
have done over the last several months to achieve VUWSA’s Constitutional Goals. After these agenda items have been discussed there will also be an opportunity to discuss any general business. At our AGM last year during the general business section, a motion was moved from the floor, and passed, that VUWSA actively support the Legalise Love campaign. And, of course in true VUWSA spirit there will be a free pizza lunch following the meeting. VUWSA General Elections But don’t think the fun stops after the AGM! The day following the AGM nominations for the 2013 VUWSA Executive will open, with voting taking place in mid-September. University is more than just attending classes and writing essays, so if you want to get a bit more out of your University experience, and help students while you do it you should consider running for the VUWSA Executive. While we need to wait for the outcome of the AGM to be certain about what positions will be available to run for, there are lots of different areas of VUWSA you can get involved in—be it education, welfare, equity, clubs or activities.
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Or if running for the Executive is something you are considering, but you’re not 100 per cent sure about it, give one of the current Executive members an email and ask for a quick catch up to discuss running for the Executive. While job descriptions are good for getting a general idea of what a certain position entails, it always helps to talk to someone who has been in the position before. Nominations open this Thursday and close at 4.30pm on Friday 14 September. So if you’re not quite sure if you want to run or not, you’ve got plenty to time to decide! That’s all from me this week! We’ve got a lot of exciting things planned for the remainder of the year. Women’s Officer Sara has been working hard to organise an awesome Women’s Fest, Welfare Vice President Rory is bringing back Students’ As Workers Week and we’re looking at working with Student Services on campus to run a bigger and better Stress Free Study Week. Hope to see you all the AGM! Don’t forget for the magic to happen we are going to need at least 100 members attending the meeting. The meeting will be held a 1pm, this Wednesday in SU217 & 218.
v u w s a & Frien d s
VICE-PRESIDENT (ACADEMIC) JOSH WRIGHT
Welcome to Josh’s Dank Den of Monthly Student Unionism. I wanna take you to the SFO (serious fun office!)* Touch-and-go, too-soon, close-to-the-bone jokes about the misfortunes of our fellow students associations aside, it’s the arts issue. While I make no effort to be artistic, I pour my heart and soul into being artful (a la the dodger) every day. Figure 1: my luring of you into reading this column. Make no mistake: good looks and witticisms aside, I’m still from VUWSA. ‘That old doozy!’ I hear you say, a smile on your face. “Yes,” I reassure you, “this old doozy.” Okay, back on track. Really, I swear we’re not as placid as you might think. Besides, my self-indulgence is riding at an all-time high and feeds off your readership. In exchange for your continued reading of this column, I promise to avoid dryness; in fact—I pledge to make this as wet as possible (oh ho ho ho, no). So in an easy show of goodwill, I’ll refrain from regailing you with the goings-on of the association with this half-page. You can find all of that information on our website, in the news pages of this fine publication, and in
Bridie’s column should you desire it. Instead, I use this column with the hope of establishing and continuing, as far as is possible for a social outcast like myself, a genuine rapport with the student body. A revelation: we at VUWSA, contrary to stubborn rumour, are not humourless robots. Put simply: I hold executive accessibility in high esteem. There’s no use claiming to be representative if students don’t find you approachable in the first instance. While I realise my crassness and failing attempts at humour may repel some of the more fair-minded of our students, I’m quick to reassure that it’s merely attention-seeking; I’m legitimately cherubic over email and in person. Just try me. As the officer in charge of advocating and lobbying for quality and fairness in education at this University, I am open to hearing whatever it is you have to say. Actually, I get paid (meagrely, mind you) to listen and relay your viewpoint. Good or bad, let me hear it. avp@vuwsa.org.nz *Our best wishes to Auckland University Students’ Association, who have been taken to the Serious Fraud Office by students.
TE AO TŌRANGAPŪ J OA N N A M O R G A N
Ā tērā mārama ka wānanga anō ngā tauira o te whare wānanga. Kia mōhio ai koutou, ko Joanna Morgan (Tumuaki o Ngāi Tauira) ko Julia Whaipooti (Tumuaki Wahine o Ngā Rangahautira) ko Quinn Rosa (Tumuaki Tuarua Mātauranga o Ngāi Tauira) mātou ko Anaru Toia ngā māngai Māori e kawe nei i ngā take o ngā tauira Māori ki te wānanga tauira. Ka wānangahia te take nui ko te Student Services Levy. Ki a koutou e ako ana i te whare wānanga mā te katoa o te tau ka tuku e ono rau rima tekau tāra hei moni mō te Student Services Levy. He nui ngā kaupapa e whakatūria e tēnei pūtea, tirohia ki te pae tukutuku o Wikitōria kei reira ngā wetewetenga. Otirā, ka wānanga te whare wānanga me ngā māngai tauira e pā ana ki tēnei kaupapa. Ko tā tātou, he aha ngā pirangi a ngā tauira Māori? Kia tū ai ngā wharekai pai ake? Kia kore te putea e nui haere? Kia kore te pūtea e whakatū i ngā wāhi whakaora? Me mōhio koutou, nāu te pūtea nei nō reira kei a koutou ngā tohutohu. Ki ētahi o koutou, kāore koutou e pānui i te katoa o te maheni anō hoki te kōrero o te tumuaki o VUWSA. Heoi, ka whakanuia tā rātou, me kī tā tātou, hui-ā-tau ā te 22 o Ākuhata (i tēnei Wenerei). Ka horahia te kai parehe hei kai mā te puku, ka horahia ngā take o te tau hei kai mā te hinengaro. Ko tētahi take nui o te hui he arotake i te āhua o te Kōmiti Whakahaere o VUWSA me ngā mahi o te tau. Haere atu ki te hui, kia mōhio ai he aha ngā mahi a tēnei rōpū tauira me ngā whāinga a ngā tau e tū mai nei. I tēnei wā tonu he nui ngā aromatawai, ngā whakamātautau o te whare wānanga. Kāore e roa, ka puta te taumaha a te mahi, arā, kua tata mutu te tau. Kei te whakaarohia te tau e tū mai nei, he aha ngā wawata a ngā tauira Māori? I tēnei tau, kua raru te rōpū i ngā rerekētanga a ngā mahi a te whare wānanga e pā ana ki ngā rōpū tauira, kua rangirua i tēnei āhua. Engari, ki a koutou e hoki mai ā tērā tau, he aha āu e pīrangi ai? He whakaaro ā koutou e pā ana ki te mahi o Ngāi Tauira? Tukuna ā īmeera mai ki a Joanna ki joanna. morgan@vuw.ac.nz
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v u w s a & Frien d s
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TRANS* REPRESENTATIVE E M M A M A D D OX
Hi! I’m Emma, the newly-elected trans* representative for UniQ. So you may be wondering about what that * means. Hint: it wasn’t a typo, and it’s not just there for decoration. The asterisk indicates that the term is inclusive; that is, I am not speaking strictly of transmen and women. Gender is a super complex thing, and there are about as many gender identities as there are studded belts at a Tegan and Sara concert. MtF. FtM. Transgender. Intersex. Genderqueer. Agender. Bigender. Takatāpui. These are but a few of the many terms you may hear bandied about. Turns out people are complicated and diverse? I’m going to give a brief run-down of what those terms mean; for more detailed information, I suggest you get in touch with my good friend Google.
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MtF or FtM are initialisms referring to transgender people. MtF means 'male-tofemale' and refers to the transition from the gender assigned at birth to the gender the person identifies as. FtM is the inverse, standing for 'female-to-male'. Other commonly used terms include “transwoman” and “transman” respectively. An intersex person is one whose body cannot be simply categorised as either male or female. They can possess indeterminate or atypical combinations of features that are usually used to distinguish sex (thanks, Wikipedia). I personally identify as genderqueer. It is generally used as an umbrella term, describing those who don’t identify as male or female.
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Genderfluid people feel that their gender is not static, but that it changes over time. “Agender” refers to those who do not identify with any gender. Someone who is bigendered identifies as having two genders. Takatāpui is an inclusive term for queer people within Māoridom.Turns out people are pretty complicated! One of my responsibilities as trans* rep is to revive the currently-defunct Gender Club Society. This is a group centered around discussions, workshops and seminars on gender issues. Our first event will be held in the Student Union Building after the midtrimester break. It will be a discussion called ‘Our Language, Our Bodies, Ourselves’ . There’ll be a presentation on the relationship between discourse and identity as it pertains to trans*/intersex/non-binary (etc.) people and bodies. Then we can have a chat about it! You can share your thoughts and experiences and ask questions in a supportive, open, inclusive environment. You should totally come. It will be informative and awesome. Maybe there will be baking! I want Vic to be a safe space for people of all genders. If you have concerns, questions or comments, feel free to email me at transrep.uniqvictoria@gmail.com
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WHEN CANCER REARS ITS HEAD S U E C O R K I L L , C A N C E R I N F O R M AT I O N N U R S E , C A N C E R S O C I E T Y W E L L I N G T O N .
Sally was enjoying life at uni with her newly found independence, and study going well. Then out of the blue, she found out that her mother, living in Invercargill, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and following her surgery was to have lengthy chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment. This put Sally into a tailspin. How could she help her mother who was miles away and also keep focused on her study? Whether it is your mother,father, sister, brother or a close friend, it is often extremely difficult to know how best to support someone who lives at a distance from you. What do you say? What can you do when finances aren’t great, and you can’t afford to fly back and forth to visit? How do you cope when you feel that person needs you, but you can’t be there? First of all, it is important to know that you don’t need to deal with this alone. The Cancer Society is an example of an
organisation that is well placed to help you with resources and wide-ranging support. Other organisations such as your local church or your student health centre can also be valuable. You may be surprised at how you feel emotionally. You may feel shocked, scared, angry or helpless. Many people feel guilty— not only at not being there to help, but also as relationships with parents can be difficult—especially when they ‘push your buttons’. It can help enormously to talk to someone who understands this. You can talk to our Cancer Information Nurses on the Cancer Information Helpline—0800 CANCER (226 237) to ask any questions or concerns or link into our online support CancerChatNZ. Cancer Society Wellington also offers free counselling by appointment. We live in such a great age for communication. And this is one area that you can be active in. Texting, phoning, skyping, 38
emailing and the old fashioned cards and letters, are all ways of being connected. The most important thing for so many people is knowing that you are there—caring, loving and concerned. Learn to be a good listener— many carers think they have to ‘do and fix’ all the time, but being a comforting ear on the phone can be of enormous benefit. The Cancer Society Support team can help you if you are struggling in what to say and suggest other ways you may help. Parents often want to protect their children from bad news and may not be forthcoming in what is happening to them. Again the Cancer Society offers a wide range of booklets and fact sheets that can help you be better informed and a valuable support person. Check out our website: www.cancernz.org.nz, email us—info@cancersoc.org.nz or ring 0800 CANCER (226 237).
I have a question which i hope you can help me with. Recently I started a relationship with a totally HOT guy who has never been in a gay relationship hes a real blokey bloke and to look at him you would think he was totally into the female front bum......and he was until he met me (this was confirmed to me by his sister and best friend). I’m not all that Fem either BUT way more than he is. We have sex up to 3 times a day and he is an amazing lover (once i showed him what to do) my problem is that everytime we go out anywhere he seems to get really possessive and territorial over me (i’ve told him i’m absolutely fine if we don’t do the whole PDA thing) but he insits on holding hands in public (completely fine with me ;P) but if another guy was to even look at us sideways he gets really agressive and usually ends up cussing them out, why is he doing this and how do i stop it, i have asked him but he usually says “that guy had a problem”? Also is his possessiveness something to keep an eye out for as i have GF’s who have had bad experiences with possessive, territorial boyfriends? Other than this he is incredibly sensitive, romantic and passionate and treats my like a princess. Am i overreacting and should i just be greatful that i have found an amazing guy? Roxy has never shied away from playing armchair psychiatrist, so let’s get our notebook
BULLSHIT CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE
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out and try to figure out what’s going on here. Your boyfriend is a recently gay (bi?) guy who is totally possessive over you, to the point of causing scenes in public. So what’s going on? First, you could be overreacting: it may just be a phase he is going through, now that he is (presumably) out of the closet. Maybe he feels threatened by homophobia, and thinks that these sorts of reactions are a good way to appear tough and confident in his sexuality. Maybe he’s just really, really in love with you, and he’s worried more experienced gays will steal you from him. Do you do anything that might worry him? Are you flirty? It may be that without realising it, you are feeding into some insecurity he might have around your relationship. That’s not to say his behaviour is acceptable: It stopped being acceptable at the point you told him to cut it out. Still, if the changes needed are something you’d be happy to do, then making those changes seems like a good idea. On the other hand, maybe there is something more concerning going on. Possessiveness by itself is not a cardinal sin, but it can quickly escalate into something worse. Does his behaviour limit the places you can go? Can you comfortably take him to a gay bar, or will he start causing a scene? Are you missing out on going places and doing things that you want to
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS FOR ROXY TO ♥
RO XYHEA RT@SA LI ENT. O RG. NZ
♥
do because of him? That’s when you need to start worrying. Possessiveness can very quickly turn into controlling-ness, and any boyfriend who wants to control you, is going to turn into bad news. Still, Roxy’s feeling is that you are not yet at that point. Next time you’re with your boyfriend, have a chat about what has been happening. Try and figure out what he’s feeling, why he thinks he needs to be protective. Tell him that he’s making you uncomfortable, and be honest about your concerns. He might be uncomfortable talking about it, so don’t worry if you need to try a few times, but eventually you should be able to zero-in on the issue. Is he nervous and insecure? Then comfort him and try and build his confidence. Is he controlling and won’t acknowledge your feelings in this situation? Dump him. <3, Roxy. If you have issues or concerns that you wish to discuss privately and confidentially with a professional, rather than a magazine columnist, Student Counselling Service can provide a safe place to explore such aspects of your life. The service is free and confidential. Phone 04 463 5310. Email counselling-service@vuw. ac.nz. Visit Mauri Ora, Level 1, Student Union Building.
FEM INAZIS CARLA SALIZZO
Has anyone else noticed that ‘women’ are in charge of basically every part of our country? More so than the atheists, I mean. Don’t get me wrong, I have many female friends, but we men have been marginalised even to the point that our minds and culture force us to believe in some ‘equality of the sexes’. And women are Out To Get Us. I’m no sexist, but this clitorocentric world has fully turned against men, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they started earning comparable wages to us within the next twenty years! Don’t believe
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me? Raise these points in your next tutorial and see how quickly ‘they’ shout you down! Just don’t be surprised when their brainwashed ‘boyfriends’ want to physically beat you. There is an undeniable campaign to discredit any Freethinking Man on campus. The singleminded aggression of the ‘fairer’ sex is nothing short of alien, and surely must prompt in any viewer the feeling that they are some sort of extra-terrestrial being, infesting the Good People with lies and discord. Then again, boobs.
EAT YOUR FUCKING GREENS THINGS
YOU ALREADY KNOW PHOEBE MORRIS
BUT JUST NEED
TO BE TOLD
ARTI-CHOKE
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A R T I S V I TA L B U T —
ARTI-CHOKING
U T H E R D E A N ( C H I E F S AG E )
or flood their Facebook walls with posts about how they are an artist and artists don’t work for free, the ‘But is it art?’ conversation is a sure sign that someone likes the idea of being an artist or a critic or whatever, more than they actually like doing the work. Art is vital but you won’t let that stop you labelling people artists or, more importantly, not artists. Stop doing that. Everyone can be an artist. What are you actually trying to achieve by telling someone otherwise? Do you want less art in the world? I don’t. Art is vital but that won’t stop you clinging to your copies of Syd Field and Robert McKee and telling everyone that their third act is shaky as if those traditional cookie cutter models of narrative have any place as exemplars for the wide open field of story-telling. Yes, structure is important. No, it is not the bellwether of something’s success. Art is vital but if I hear one more person prejudging a movie based on the trailer I will scream so loud that this very planet will crack open and swallow us all into its fiery embrace. Art is vital but that doesn’t stop it being something you have to practise. And, for fuck’s sake, please remember that not everything you do is genius. Finish things before you show people. It is hard and daunting but if you wait and develop a voice through trial and error people are going to be much more interested in what you do. Don’t be the photographer that just takes photos of their feet. 40
ARTI-CHOKED
SHARON LAM // WHERE IS BERT NOW?
Art is vital but don’t let that stop you being silly. Art is vital but having somewhere to sleep is more vital. But not that much more. There are three kinds of artists; businessmen, addicts, and everyone else. Always be everyone else. Art is vital but don’t be scared or daunted by its vitality. Reveal yourself and understand yourself through it. No one is ever too insignificant for art, every story is worth telling. Especially yours. You are the only person who thinks they don’t have anything interesting to say. Art is vital but you have to remember that your rejection of the low art-high art binary cuts both ways. That means that just as you can’t tear work apart just because it’s highbrow, you can’t protect more populist art from any kind of criticism because it’s low brow. Art is vital but you have to learn to live with the fact that the gap between things you don’t like and things that are actually bad is usually pretty huge. Stop hiding behind Sturgeon’s law, it fails because it applies a totality to art and art is something that can never be total or controlled. Art is vital but that doesn’t make your inane pointless conversations about whether something is art, or what art is any less jawdroppingly wearisome. Just like the people who obsess over the copyright of their ideas
EM M A WEENIK R O S E B U R R O W E S & M AT T W H I T E
This week we spoke to netball amazon Emma Weenik. Her career to date has been beleaguered by injury but the machine that is Emma rumbles on. Stand down. How long have you been playing and what do you love about it? Since I was six, but I’ve been out of netball for three years on and off with various injuries. I had surgery a year ago and played on it, then found I had three stress fractures. Never been burnt out? Not really. I count down the days to the seasons and am gutted when it’s over. I would’ve thought I’d feel resentment to the sport but haven’t yet. What has been your greatest achievement in Netball? NZ U21 squad. However, I’ve just been cut because of injury. If you were on form, whom would you be playing for? The Pulse or Pacific Islands Church Netball coached by Wai (Silver Ferns legend), who have produced legends.
Your list of injuries would rival any pro-skater, what was the most painful? A year ago I ripped scar tissue on both sides of my ankle, and the bones banged together and shattered on the inside. Giggled my way off court. Netball girls’ version of rugby. Guildford? (Naked and aggressive) It’s a big thing to go out after NPC—initiation involves picking a song, singing it without music and dancing sluttily to it. Britney spears “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” I was 16 so did it sober (!!) How do you balance pro-sport and uni? It’s tough, but High Performance Sport NZ/ Prime Minister’s Athlete Scholarships provide you with a mentor, who can liaise between you and the university. The other day my partner in (social) netball (*shout out to really good netball team!!!*) told me to ‘fuck off’, ever been in an epic bitch fight? There was one game against a big rival team, Tatura, a prestigious Maori girls school. We were two up, and this girl and I were getting annoyed at each other, I intercepted the ball, then turned and poked my tongue out at her.
As I did it, I threw the ball away—such karma! Are there barriers to guys playing netball in the outdoor arena? Leagues do exist, and guys are great competition. One of the best players I know shows me the game from a guy’s perspective. The guys have recognised it’s femaledominated, but it doesn’t stop them playing or enjoying it. If soccer is an Olympic sport, do you think netball should be, too? No, it’s a good balance being at the Commonwealth Games and not the Olympics. Netball doesn’t have the global following that football does, so it wouldn’t fit. Watching all these Kiwi athletes do amazingly well has made Matt want to get back on an oar. Does it inspire you to make the Ferns? It’s always been a priority—you see how happy they are and that hard work brings reward. People like Mahe are inspirational.
P A R A D O X O F F I C TION U D AY A N M U K H E R J E E
We are the storytelling apes. From the earliest campfire tales to modern Hollywood blockbusters, the delights of a finely spun yarn have demanded attention in human society. Narrative fiction is of such enduring importance because it allows us to exercise our artistic imagination and use it to reflect on whatever social issue the author chooses to focus on. The mark of good literature has always been the ability to allow us to inhabit world which are totally unlike our own, and empathise with the characters there. Successful fiction can do this even when basic premises of reality are abandoned, which is why the travails of Harry, Ron & Hermione
or Bruce Wayne are memorable despite their implausibility. But a potential puzzle looms. It is just obvious that (good) fiction can have an emotional impact on us—which is why we cry when Bambi’s mother die. It is also obvious that no-one really believes that the stuff that is described in novels and movies is true—which is why we don’t keep crying at the end of the Bambi DVD. So why do we have genuine emotional reactions to things that we know are just make-believe? This is often called the paradox of fiction, and its main contention is to try and establish that there is something 41
deeply irrational about the way humans interact with fictional worlds. How might you respond to this? You might suggest that we have a special attitude of ‘make-believe’ which means we temporarily really do think of fictional characters as existing. Or maybe the tears or fears that fiction elicits are just fake emotions; fictionalfears and quasi-tears. Whichever way you choose to look at it, a solution to the paradox of fiction implies something mysterious about our imaginative abilities. Perhaps we ought to be more wary of those peddlers of the narrative dark arts.
G R E AT O LY M P I C S , T O O BAD ABOUT A U S T R A L I A T H O U GH STEPHEN GILLAM
My sleep schedule has finally returned to normal. Yet as the Olympics finally wound down, I couldn’t help but feel a great deal of sadness. Maybe that was just from watching the Spice Girls. Highlights for many of us included the usual
suspects of the Bond and Murray Domination Show or Mahe Drysdale finally winning after Beijing. Depending on your side of the fence, you probably had a smug grin at some stage while we were ahead of Australia on the medal tally. “Silver Coast” was a witty call, it really was.
It was also reasonably humorous when an Australian channel refused to show New Zealand in the top ten of the medal tally. That said, Sky did something similar when Australia made the top ten so that ghetto does have two gangs. Balance was eventually restored, but the gold tallies were fairly similar once the (five) fat ladies sung. I'll probably be lambasted as crazy for this, but I think New Zealand and Australia will be reasonably close in this regard for some years. When 'Straya hosted the Olympics back in 2000 (something they're still paying off, if you were wondering), they did what every other country does when they host a Games: bring in a crop of young athletes to show the world how awesome you are. Yes, it's basically a country's version of a dick-measuring contest. Some say a country wins the most medals in the Olympics after the one they host, and there could be something in that. Think of the athletes Australia brought up, the coaches they hired, and the high expectations placed on their athletes. All of that stuff will carry over into the next tournament. Shortly after 2000, Australia were sporting world-beaters. But that Sydney bubble has since burst and the coaches have gone overseas. Swimming competition from the Yanks and Chinese has intensified and the Brits have reclaimed cycling. Essentially, they overachieved for the last 12 years. They still did superbly in London, but NZ have done well to focus resources on events like rowing. Look at what three golds will do.
CINNAMON BUNS H AY L E Y A D A M S
Baking with yeast can be a stressful venture but I promise you these wee cinnamon buns taste delicious and make your house smell amazing, so do try to be brave. What you need… For the dough ▴▴ ½ cup milk ▴▴ 3 tsp. yeast ▴▴ 50g soft butter ▴▴ 1 egg ▴▴ 2 tbsp. sugar ▴▴ 1 tsp. cinnamon ▴▴ 450g flour For the filling ▴▴ 70g soft butter ▴▴ ¼ cup (packed) brown sugar ▴▴ 2 tsp. cinnamon
How to make…
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Heat milk until just warmed and then add the sugar and yeast, stir to combine and let sit to activate for about ten minutes. Place flour and cinnamon into a large bowl and rub the butter into it. Add the milk mixture and the egg to the flour and stir to combine. Set aside somewhere warm for 45 minutes to rise. While this is rising prepare your filling by combining the butter, sugar and cinnamon (it will be best if it is spreading consistency). Bring the dough into a ball shape and then roll into a rectangular shape about 2cm thick on a floured surface. Spread filling over the dough and then roll it up along the longest edge. Cut into 2cm thick slices and place on an oven tray covered with baking paper with the loose ends of the rolls tucked under so they do not unroll. Bake for ten minutes or until golden. 42
Lovin' From The Oven
⤬
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2012/13 INTERNSHIPS AND GRADUATE JOBS!
VicIDS Speaker Event: Local Youth Development in Wellington, by Ellen Anderson Wednesday 12th September, 5.15pm, CO304 Interested in development issues in Wellington? Looking for an opportunity to help out in our community? Come along to this VicIDS speaker event in Week 7. Ellen Anderson will speak on issues affecting youth development close to home. Ellen is the educator coordinator for Youthline Wellington. Previously, she has worked at Victoria advocating for disabled students on the Disability Services team. Free fairtrade tea & coffee provided!
Victoria University TaeKwonDo Club ▴▴ Interested in Taekwondo? New to Taekwondo? Learned Taekwondo before? ▴▴ Come along and join us! Great way to keep fit and have fun! ▴▴ Training times: ▴▴ Tuesday 6.30pm - 8.00pm Long Room, Victoria University Recreation Centre Saturday 3.30pm - 5.30pm Dance Room, Victoria University Recreation Centre ▴▴ What you need: Drink bottle, comfy trousers/ shorts, t-shirt ▴▴ Contact us: vuwtkd@hotmail.com
B USIN ESS CLUB
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CareerHub CAREERHUB.VICTORIA.AC.NZ Get your CV ready—attend workshops, CV checks…
Applications closing SOON: ORGANISATIONS
CLOSING DATE
Flintfox International
20-Aug
Wilson Hellaby
24-Aug
Electronic Company of New 27-Aug Zealand, The Australian National University, MetService, Vista Entertainment Solutions, Endace Technology, Newmont Asia Pacific Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust, Clemenger Group, AIESEC, BRANZ, Matakina Technology
30-Aug
Career Events - book on CareerHub: CAREERS EXPO
DATE
ASB Graduate Recruitment
20-Aug
Faculty of Commerce & Administration: Postexperience Careers Expo
4-Sep
Careers for Arts Students
18-Sep
Disney International Programme
20-Sep
JET Programme
24-Sep
Full details on CareerHub http://careerhub. victoria.ac.nz
C AN DO
The Business and Investment Club (BIC) 23th August, 6.30pm @ SU217 “From possum trapper to clothing entrepreneur”, guest speaker Davey Hughes (Swazi clothing) will be talking about his company, why did he become an entrepreneur and what it takes to be successful in the competitive world of clothing business. Want to know how to build your own company from scratch? Davey has done it and will share his experience, so don´t hesitate and come to this great event!
SPE AKE R E VE NT The Road Ahead: How would you spend $30 billion? With rising petrol prices, a growing population, and a need to cut our carbon emissions, New Zealand faces some big transport challenges. But are these also big opportunities? Join Generation Zero for an exciting debate on New Zealand’s transport future. With MPs Nick Smith (National), Phill Twyford (Labour) and Julie Anne Genter (Greens) to discuss their parties’ positions, and chaired by Professor Ralph Sims (transport expert) to set the scene and keep the MPs on their toes. Wesley Church, 75 Taranaki Street, Thursday 23rd August, 6:30-8PM Gold coin donation for entry.
Can Do, the representative group for students with disabilities and impairments, is meeting up for the second meeting on Wednesday 22nd August between 3-4pm in Meeting Room 2 (in the Student Union). Come along to learn more and be a part of future events!
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VIC OE – VIC STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMME Why not study overseas as part of your degree?! Earn Vic credit, get Studylink & grants, explore the world! Weekly seminars on Wednesdays, Level 2, Easterfield Building, 12.55pm - 1.05pm Email: VicOE@vuw.ac.nz Website: http://victoria.ac.nz/exchange Visit us: Level 2, Easterfield Building Drop-in hours: Mon & Tues 9-12, Wed-Fri 10-12
TO AST MASTE R CLUB VICTORIA UNIVERSITY TOASTMASTERS CLUB Offers a friendly supportive environment to improve your communication & leadership skills. Would you like to: ▴▴ Improve your speaking & presentation skills? ▴▴ Get your message across more effectively? ▴▴ Develop your personal & professional abilities? Club Meets: Every Wednesday between 12noon & 1pm, Student Union building, Room 219
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LETTER ✶ OF THE ✶
WEEK
lettersS
WINS TWO FREE COFFEES FROM VIC BOOKS!
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING ALL HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS END EVENTUALLY. Dear ‘Say-what-guuuuurl’ient, Missed me, bitches? It’s come to that frightening time of trimester where assignments that seemed so far away at the beginning of term have become a reality, evidenced by the sheer volume of freshers crying in the library about 1500 word essays. They all need to get some perspective and harden up. There are starving children in Africa that look at your macbook pros and see 200kgs of rice that would feed their families for a lifetime, families in Syria unsure if they’ll wake up tomorrow, Americans that want Glee to come back already, and then there is me still suffering from heartbreak, still a hapless fresher, and still friends with a mature age student. I am not getting any younger, it seems, and my life seems to be getting more and more tragic by the tear-filled moment. Even watching Jeremy Kyle depresses me instead of giving me a self-esteem boost like it usually does. They may be feral Chavs that have no teeth, but they have each other. THEY HAVE LOVE. WHERE IS MY LOVE. WHERE IS MY PRINCE CHAV COME TO WHISK ME AWAY Yours forever, MiKe, that forever loveless fuck.
CAMPUS HUB(BA BUBBA)! Dear Salient Why when there are plenty of attractive intelligent men and women at University am I still looking at
the sexy construction workers? Whats wrong with me??? Miss confused.
ANOTHER PUFF PIECE IN THE LETTERS SECTION Dear you filthy hipster fucks, What the fuck is up with puffer jackets? Regards, d@ f@$hi0n p01ic3
YOU CAN PUT HONEY ANYWHERE BUT THERE. Edit-whores Would you like something to eat? Something to nibble? Apricots, soaked in honey? Quite why, no one knows, because it stops them taste like honey…and if you wanted honey, you could just… buy honey. Instead of apricots. But nevertheless they’re yours, if you want them. You guys are doing a surreal job. Surreal, but nice. Regards, Ms. Dunkin’ Donut 2003
A SOMEWHAT-LESS-THAN CONSIDERED QUESTION TO ROXY HEART. COOL, BRO. How big of a penis is too big? I’m worried that when I wake up every day my penis is so hard, and sometimes it hurts cuz its so hard. My girlfriend doesn’t like it when I wake up like this, is there anything I can do to make the swelling go away? Love, your huuuuuuuugest fan
SALIENT LETTERS POLICY 2012 Salient welcomes, encourages and thrives on public debate—be it serious or otherwise— through the letters pages. Write about what inspires you, enrages you, makes you laugh, makes you cry. Send us feedback, send us abuse. Anything. Letters must be received before 5pm Tuesday, for publication the following week. Letters must be no more than 250 words. Pseudonyms are fine, but all letters must include your real name, address and telephone number. These will not be printed. Please note that letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar. The Editors reserve the right to edit, abridge or decline any letters without explanation.
LETTERS CAN BE SENT TO
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BEWARE THE IDES OF AUGUST... Dear ‘Disgruntled Queer’, grow a pair. If you’re going to publicly name, shame and undermine a VUWSA exec member (and the most committed Queer student representative in years) in Salient, then at least have the guts to sign the letter without a pseudonym. Perhaps it’s because you work with Gen, know her personally or heaven forbid; are friends on Facebook. If this is so, then you’re the Brutus to her Caesar. Queer activists like Harvey Milk were assassinated for putting their name and face to the LGBT cause. You can’t even put your name to a letter... Yours forever and always, Jonathan Goode and Duncan Hope xxx
WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS MAGAZINE. Dear “editors” Let’s go on a mini-break. I’m really flexible. As to time. Sincerely, Hopeful PS your magazine is okay although I didn’t understand some of the last one
LET’S BE HONEST, YOU PROBABLY ARE A TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING Salient, Uther Dean’s column constantly makes me feel like I am a terrible human being. Don’t get me wrong, it is informative and entertaining, but every week I discover yet another aspect of myself that makes me morally reprehensible. My vision of the future is now becoming increasingly grim. No one who is as despicable as I am could possibly succeed in life. I picture myself owning fifty cats, having an imaginary boyfriend, consuming microwave meals and drinking a bottle of red wine every day. Soon I will start watching episodes of Six Feet Under in order to cheer myself up. Please Uther, tell us some happy stories about how humanity is in fact of beacon of perfection, where purity and kindness prevail. If not then I can’t be hold responsible for wailing profusely in the Hunter courtyard, whilst Bjork plays in the background. Yours, Man who epitomises vice and immorality
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF DOUCHE Dear Salient, Uni is hard enough without asshole, male chauvinist tutorial
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Salient ♥ you
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coordinators treating female students like idiots... “I can’t make it to any of those tutorial times this week, I have stuff on” “Oh by stuff you mean lectures and tutorials and study stuff?” “Yes...” “Oh, by stuff I thought you had to get your nails done [accusatory tone]”. Sincerely, A pissed off and upset student.
MISSED CONNECTIONS & CABLES ON LVL 3 Regarding hump day 15.07.12. After strinking up a convosation with “Hey do you have an ipod cord?” you then went on to tell me that you had lost two in the last few hours. I think you must have been having a truely shit day because shortly after that you left the library without your jacket. Dude its a good thing your heads screwd on. Anyhow I took your jacket for safe keeping, email me if u want to pick it upcon. sin.gage@gmail.com
INCORRECT. IT’S ALL ABOUT US. Hey fuck faces, So this letter isn’t about you. Oh no, did mummy never tell you that sometimes shit isn’t about you? Cause sometimes it’s about me, that’s right, I fucked your mum. Oh you guys aren’t related? NO ONE CARES. So today I was going about my day as per usual, being better than most cause quite frankly some people don’t deserve to breathe. I was hitting on this chick, I asked if she wanted to see my junk and she hit me with some of your junk. No homo. I’m talking about Salient if you’re too slow to follow my staggering genius. Seriously why do we need a whole issue dedicated to Maori people? Also if you’re going to do it, do it right. Have articles about how to sell weed or lodge a treaty claim. Are you too P.C for that? (P.C stands for Pussy Cunts). Eric.
lettersS sure as hell don’t see a New Zealand Sign Language issue. While you were munching koha, a language slowly died. Think about your actions, and more importantly, think of ours. *pulls the finger* Mojo Mathers
TOO LOST IN YOU Dear ‘friends’, So what’s this big news? We’ve been given our parts in the nativity play. And I’m the lobster The lobster? Yeah! In the nativity play? Yeah, *first* lobster. There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus? Duh. Regards, Saturday evenings alone
RELEVANT TO OUR INTERESTS Dear Salient It has recently come to my attention that your political columnist, Hamish McChonnoqueer (sp?), has started a Facebook page called “Fences on Willis and Manners Streets? A discussion group for Wellingtonians”. This page is about the erection of barriers on these arterial routes to try and reduce pedestrian fatalities. Hamish has even provided thoughtful discussion of the many types of fencing available, including “Old Bank-style bollards”, “Kelburn Wooden Fence” and “Intercontinental Style Fence”. This page is extremely relevant to every student, and I think it’s important they share their views. I also suggest that Salient shows some social responsibility for once, and devotes a feature article to this issue:
GROW UP. Dear Maori-lient, You guys are soooo sensitive to your Treaty obligations. Good on you. You’re soooooo new age. I bet you have heaps of Maori friends and know your ‘ah-eh-ee-or-oo’s real good. I bet the thought of customary title to water makes you sooo wet. Fuck you all. You’ve copped out by kowtowing to the radical Maori groups. Shame on you. New Zealand has THREE official languages, you fucks. And I
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it’s literally a matter of life and death. Thanks, Concerned Wellingtonian.
PUTIN THEM IN THEIR P(A)LACE Russian punk band “Pussy Riot” had it coming if you ask me. I hope the Russian courts really screw them over because they are god dam horrendous. In all my time listening to Russian political-punk, I have never heard such degenerate use of the mother tongue. So you think seven years in the slammer is a bit stern for rockin’ out in the lords’ presence? Three Hail Marys for your folly. You can’t have heard them yet. I listened to them last night to see what all the celebrity hooha was about and discovered that their sound is more repugnant than a Kremlin sex party. Wipe your eyes Madonna, you too Sting. Another band-wagon is already approaching. The actual song lyrics that saw them yanked off stage by plain clothed well-wishers went a little like this; Save Russia from Putin. And repeat. I would argue it was more a chant than a song but perhaps some of their deft articulation was lost in the subtitles. Anyway, Putin is a judo champ that rides horses with no top on and hunts reindeer so get on the right side of this dust-up people. Anyone else seen “Russia’s Hardest Prisons” on National Geographic? It’s so good! Hehe, I wonder if they will wind up at the sinister sounding Black Dolphin Prison, home to Russia’s cheekiest guard dogs and most prominent cannibals. Show those girls a show trial Russia! Matt White
Salient ♥ you
puzzles
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Puzzle 1 (Medium, difficulty rating 0.54)
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5 4
1 6
9
3 2
3
4 2
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9 3
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5 7
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Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/sudokugen/ on Sun Aug 12 22:55:37 2012 GMT. Enjoy!
ACROSS
8. Place to lay a bet (6) 9. With 'Manhunter', member #1 (7) 10. Blondie hit, or type of radiation (6) 11. Where you might await execution (5,3) 12. With 'Woman', member #2 (6) 14. Member #3 (3,5) 15. What the seven people are founding members of (7,6) 17. Member #4 (8) 19. Member #5 (6) 21. Large flat sea-critter (5,3) 23. Short promo for a 2-Down (6) 25. With 'Green', Member #6 (7) 26. Possible murder location in 'Cluedo' (6) 1. Body of art? (6) 2. Medium that many superheroes have been in recently (4) 3. Orchestral pieces (8) 4. In the thick of (4) 5. Fancily designed (6) 6. It keep the monsters under the bed away (5,5) 7. One who gets the thumbs up (8) 13. Having or showing good judgment (10) 14. Many a fan of the Biebs (like, OMG, totes!) (5) 15. (Wearing) on an angle, like a hat (8) 16. Cause many problems for (8) 18. Captain published, funnily enough, by DC (6) 20. Get retribution for (6) 22. Tug on violently (4) 24. With 'Man', member #7 (4)
WORD SEARCH! COLLAGE STENCILS PRETENSION FEELINGS EMOTIONS ART FINGERPAINTING IMPRESSIONISM
POSTMODERN TASTEFUL FLACCID PORTRAIT ICE SCULPTURE PICASSO
SALIENT’S QUIZ FOR THE QUERULOUS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
MSPAINT SKETCHING CONCEPTUAL ABSTRACT DEATH CONNOTE NOIR
How many paintings did Van Gogh sell during his lifetime? Which famous person was the teddy bear named after? What has keys but will open no locks, has space but has no room and will allow you to enter but not to go in? Which country elected the first female Prime Minister in 1960? Which is the largest country in Scandinavia?
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6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
☞ RUSS KALE
DOWN
How much is Kim Dotcom’s monthly allowance? What is the Hindi word meaning ‘dusty’ and ‘earth’ and which we use as a colour in English? What was the first Disney film not based on an already existing story? A cross between a horse and a zebra is a hobra. True or false? In which US state is Jack Daniel’s distilled?
Answers: One; Theodore Roosevelt; a keyboard; Sri Lanka, known as Ceylon at the time; Sweden; $20,000; khaki; The Lion King; false—a male zebra and female horse is a zorse, the other way around is a zonkey; Tennessee.
vbc guide MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
7AM - 10AM
FLIGHT COFFEE VBC BREAKFAST WITH MIKE & STEPH Great guest. Good vibes. Quirky Updates from London 2012
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
8AM -10AM
8AM -10AM
BRUNCH
THE CHILDREN'S CORNER WITH LAUREN, FLO & GUESTS
10AM - 12PM
10AM -12PM
10AM - 12PM
VBC MORNING SHOW
BRUNCH
WAKE N' BAKE PEARCE & DUNCAN
WITH
12PM - 2PM
12PM - 2PM
12PM - 1PM
12PM - 2PM
12PM - 2PM
12PM - 2PM
MIDDAY
THE BEEF! WITH MATT & ALEX
MIDDAY WITH RHYSFACE
INFIDEL CASTRO
SONG FROM YOUR LUNCH BOX! WITH
THE MIDDAY BUSINESS POWER LUNCH WITH EMMA
FEAT
TOM BRINGS IT.
PHILIP MCSWEENY
WITH
JORDAN & HAYLEY
NEW VEEBS
INDY / FOLK / ALT
2PM - 4PM
2PM - 4PM
1PM - 3PM
2PM - 4PM
2PM - 4PM
LIAM & GABBY
2PM - 4PM
THE DEAD MAN MONDAY WITH CASEY & JOSS
WED AFTERNOON
DOM'S
DAVE & ED
RAD SHOW
ALEX, MICHAEL & NICK
4PM - 7PM
4PM - 7PM
4PM - 7PM
4PM - 7PM
4PM - 7PM
4PM - 7PM
4PM - 6PM
DRIVE SHOW
MONDO'S
LOUI'S
JAMES & HARRY
BELLA'S SUPER CUTE HANGOUT!
'ECLECTIC BLISS'
JOE'S
ARTS SHOW
7PM - 9PM
7PM - 9PM
7PM - 9PM
7PM - 8PM
7PM - 9PM
7PM - 9PM
6PM - 9PM
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH NICK & GEORGE
FEAT
CNTRL/ ALT / DELETE WITH
TRAIN SPOTTING
IN DEEP
REGGAE, SKA & PUNK WITH OLLIE & TIM
MELTING BUTTER
WITH
MATT & MATT
RADIO SHACK
TUESDAY
NEW VEEBS
WITH
NINA
WEDNESDAY
ROHAN & KEGAN
DRIVE
WITH
HOLLY & STUMBLE
WITH
WITH
AMY JEAN
2PM - 4PM FEAT
NEW VEEBS
WITH
VIRGINIA
WITH
SHAUN
9PM - 11PM
9PM - 11PM
9PM - 11PM
9PM - 10PM
9PM - 11PM
9PM - 11PM
9PM - 11PM
THE VINYL COUNTDOWN
BEATS, BASS & BULLSHIT
THAT'S SO METAL
COMPULSORY ECSTASY
FLOORFILLERS & PAINKILLERS
NITEY NITE
RAILROAD BLUES WITH RAY
WITH
MIKEY & PETER
WITH
JACK & BRYN
HAYDEN & MITCHELL
WITH
WITH
KIM & NIC
WITH
STEFAN
WITH
GUESTS
gig guide MON 20TH
TUE 21ST
MIGHTY MIGHTY
SAN FRANCISCO BATHHOUSE
WED 22ND
THUR 23RD
BODY LYRE, D BURMESTER & THE BLIND
WANG FUJUI, GREG MALCOLM, INTO THE DIN, OLSEN TWINS, CHAAT - GI
STRUMMERDAY 2012; THE LOST BOYS W/ THE SHOCKING THE MEDICINE 8PM
SANDWICHES
SOUTHERN CROSS
AND STUNNING & MELTING FACES THE HEARTPLUSMELODY EP RELEASE
FAMOUS FRIDAYS KROON FOR YOUR KAI
SAT 25TH
LAS TETAS, GAYTIME THE EVERSONS & FRIENDS
WELLINGTON SEA SHANTY SOCIETY PRESENTS:
BODEGA
MEOW CAFE
FRI 24TH
BUTTERCUTS
SOLA ROSA LOW & BEHOLD, HIGH & BEYOND ALBUM RELEASE TOUR CAPITAL FETISH BALL 2012 MARIA MINERVA LIQUID STRANGER (ROTTUN/USA) THE JULIE BEVAN TRIO
R
emember you are three and terrified of the kindergarden gate. You are five and putting a staple through your hand on your first day of school just to see what it would feel like. You are eight and you are murdering the class fish with your obsessive feeding of it. You are ten and your parents are splitting up and your heart is smashed in little pieces on the ground, and it’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you, except now you are fifteen and you can see that it’s the best thing. You are sixteen making a list of all the parties you’ve never been invited to, and you are seventeen forgiving your boyfriend for kissing your best friend, because you can feel his warm tears on your hand and actually that makes you realise that you are eighteen, and you know everything and you are twenty and you know nothing and you are twenty-one and life is amazing everything is amazing, you’re Peter Parker, Peter Pan, Peter Motherfucking Dinklage, you can take anything that comes your way, you can do anything, you bet you could even take a punch to the face if you wanted, go on I dare you punch me in the face go on, and you are twenty-two and you realise that it’s not being smart or being right that matters but being able to admit when you are wrong. You are twenty-five and you realise that actually it’s pronounced cray-on not crown, but too late because you have also realised that it’s not how you say something but that you’re saying anything at all that matters. And you are twenty-six and your job is ruining your life but you are thirty and your job is your life. But that’s okay because we hit rewind and you are twenty-four and making contracts with yourself at 3am that it’s okay to be alone and that the moment you accept that, things will stop hurting, but actually you are now twentyeight, and you’ve found someone who doesn’t hate you and they’re quite alright themselves if you don’t say, and everything is not fixed just better. Now you are thirty-four and there is this little person that looks like you clinging on to you for dear life and all you can say is, “I like you fine little person but how should I know how to help someone else live when I’m having such trouble doing it myself?” You are thirtyeight and feel more alone and frightened than you have at any other point and all you can think is ‘Weren’t things supposed to get better?’ but you are forty, and you realise that that is just how you and everyone else feels all of the time, but actually life is pretty fucking sweet as when you let it be like that. Then you are forty-two and you have given up on your novel because all the characters can do is say variations on “I wish life was as easy as it looked.” And you are forty-five and where does the time go and bad luck because you are forty-six already thinking ‘oh, shit and you’re fifty, and you realise that everyone in any position of power or respect or authority has just been as dazed, confused and dumb as you, they just knew how to bluff better and basically it’s a miracle the world hasn’t exploded a million times over and you are sixty, and you are sixty-four, and you are sick of that song and you are seventy, and everyone thinks you’re slowing down but actually it’s the world that’s going too fast and you are still that same bleeding five year old crying in your teacher’s arms, and you are eighty-five and things are actually starting to make sense and you’re eighty-six and you’re dead. Which is annoying.
UTHER DEAN