Creative | Issue 15 by Salient

vol.77 issue.15

the creative issue

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YOUR STUDENTS’

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ELECTION 2014

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CONTENTS

EDITORIAL THIS IS THE CREATIVE ISSUE. WE KNOW VIC KIDS ARE CREATIVE, SO WE ASKED THEM TO SEND US THEIR POETRY AND PROSE, DESIGN AND DRAWING, PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART. WE WERE STOKED AT THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF THE WORK WE RECEIVED. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS WE DO. HEAD ONTO SALIENT.ORG.NZ TO CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE EXHIBITION OF ALL THE STUFF WE COULDN’T FIT IN THE MAG.

WEEKLY CONTENT 4. LETTERS 5. NEWS 24. ARTS 26. VUWSA 27. ODDS & ENDS

CREATIVE 9. AN INTERVIEW WITH EMILY PERKINS 10. AN INTERVIEW WITH BMD 12. VISUALS 14. THE MONSTER IN THE DARK 15. DAWN 16. ANTECHINUS 16. BUILDING ON THE ROUND 17. A POEM FOR A PAPER 17. LAST LOLLY IN THE $2 MIX 18. VISUALS 20. SHEETS IN THE SUN 21. I’VE NEVER BEEN MADDER ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND AN ENDING. MAYBE BECAUSE IT’S NOT OVER YET 21. JOSEPHINE 21. LEILA 22. CONVICTION 23. SUNDAY CAESURAS

AND REMEMBER, ALL ART IS SUBJECTIVE (EXCEPT THESE EDITORIAL PICTURES THAT WE DREW OF EACH OTHER; THEY’RE OBJECTIVELY SHIT.)

LETTERS OI, ED! Did you see that ludicrous display last issue? What was Cameron thinking sending Trengrove in that early? You see the problem with Salient is, they always try to walk it in. A games issue with both sports and video games? What’s the point of trying to integrate the IT crowd with the jocks. swear, the editors shouldn’t have made that call from a phone booth. Seriously, get a wife before you start screwing us. Boos and jeers, Sokka Hooligan

INSIGHTFUL -This mail is sent via contact form on Salient http://salient.org.nz From: Andrew Harrison <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com> Subject: Message Body: holy shit piiiissss

HOMOPHOBIC HOMOPHOBES Dear Pride Week poster maker, Are all members of the LGBT community rainbow wearing, twinkle toe, prancing little fairies that are represented by perhaps the most degrading “Pride” poster I have ever seen? Was it really necessary to further entrench society’s narrow stereotype of an already oppressed and ostracised group with a poster that looks like something Liberace would have shat out? The frilly, curly-wurly font and sparkly disco look is heinously embarrassing. Pride is a characteristic that empowers individuals and groups; pride facilitates happiness and enables us to live unashamed of who we are! Pride is a characteristic of the strong, not of a bygone stereotype used to perpetuate homosexuals as a novelty. This is a fantastic initiative but I sincerely hope that “Pride” can be reflected in next year’s poster more accurately so I and many others aren’t embarrassed to celebrate who we are. Much love (No homo) Angry poof P.S See ya’ll at Ivy on Friday lmao

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HUB CRAWL RECLAIM PROTEST MAKES ITS MARX by Emma Hurley Over 100 students gathered in the Hub last Wednesday to protest commercialisation of the University. Newly formed group Reclaim Vic organised the event. Students, staff and guest speakers spoke, raising concerns about course cuts, fees, staff welfare, the restriction of the use of the Hub and the silencing of the student voice. Spokesperson for Reclaim Joshua James told Salient the group wanted the University and Government to recognise the role of university as the “critic and conscience of society”, and to be “treated as students at a university, and not as shoppers at a mall.” “The continuous raising of fees must be stopped, the cutting of courses must be stopped, the continual neglect of student input must be stopped, the denial of use of university space for students must be stopped.” Speaking at the protest, Reclaim member Juliana Jones said she wanted students to be free to access the Hub, as students are not allowed to use the space for events, protests or meetings. VUWSA was barred from serving free soup to students in the Hub for Mental Health Week last year, as it was considered unfair competition for the businesses in the Hub. The VUWSA Trust contributed $7 million to the construction of the Hub, out of a total project cost of $67 million. Lecturer and TEU National President Sandra Grey said the Government and University should “recognise public education is a public good” and it is “crucial that it remain that”. Grey said she was concerned students

STUDENT REP STEALS MONEY ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE by Sophie Boot

The Pasifika Students’ Council has elected a new president following revelations of misuse of Samoan Students’ Association funding. Fabiefara Masoe, who was elected Pasifika Students’ Council (PSC) President in 2013, resigned this month. The Pasifika Students’ Council held a Special General Meeting where they elected a new president, Karl Moresi. Masoe, who was a member of the Samoan Students’ Association (VUSSA) Executive in 2013, resigned after she was implicated

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are having to work 20 hours a week and combine this with full-time study. She said the Government should recognise that university is not a marketable product, and students should not have to face fatigue, hunger and depression while paying for their study. Reclaim wants all staff to be paid an equitable and fair wage, including caretakers and cleaners, and want the “pressures of constant output to be removed” from lecturers. Former VUWSA President Fleur Fitzsimmons spoke about “people who aren’t at university and should be”, such as students from low-decile schools, Māori, Pasifika, and people barred by fees and restrictions to Allowances. Fitzsimmons said staff are hindered by their pay and by the Performance Based Research Scheme, and this restricts their ability to provide genuine, quality teaching. She told students “you own this university: take it back”. Fitzsimmons was well known for her activism while at Victoria, particularly for protesting fee rises in 2007. The final speeches included a poetic speech about neoliberalism, a speech about privatisation of food production, and a call to attend a march against the occupation of Palestine. Former VUWSA Welfare Vice-President Heleyni Pratley says “education shouldn’t be a privilege in a functioning democracy”; it is “paid for by working people, students and families, not businesses”. Pratley, a member of the Mana Party and Team Leader at Unite, was trespassed from the University for two years in 2009 after pelting members of the University Council with eggs and rotten fruit. Joel Cosgrove, a former VUWSA President who was also trespassed after the incident, was MC at the event. Reverend John Murray told students to not see themselves as “productive consumers” or

“human resources”. Murray said students should consider themselves in terms of their values, growths and relationships, and told students not to “become a human resource.” The protest echoes previous group We Are the University (WATU) who joined a nationwide campaign against course cuts, fee hikes and the silencing of student expression. They stood for “free education, and academic and student freedom”, and against “neoliberalism and commercialism”. The group was active in 2011 and 2012, but has not been heard from since. Reclaim’s protest went ahead without intervention, with Campus Security watching at a distance. VUWSA President Sonya Clark commented she would like to see the Hub become a studentfriendly place. She wants to see “a set of guidelines, agreed to by VUWSA and University, to allow and cultivate student creativity, action and entrepreneurship”. Reclaim’s protesting over the Hub is “an overdue conversation, and I’m glad they brought it up again”. Reclaim Vic intend to meet again this week, and students who wish to know more can find them on Facebook.

in the misuse of VUSSA funds in 2013. Sources have told Salient the money involved is not more than $2000, and that there is a repayment plan now in place. The financial irregularities had been disclosed in 2013, but the PSC understood that they had been dealt with. After it became clear this month that they had not been dealt with, Masoe resigned. VUSSA is one of seven representative groups for Pasifika students at Victoria, all of which operate independent executives. The PSC is an umbrella group which advocates for Pasifika students at university and works with the representative groups. VUSSA is funded as a club by the University, using money from the $690 Student Services Levy paid by every fulltime student. It also funds its activities through membership fees and fundraising. The Pasifika Students’ Council does not influence the VUSSA Executive, but has in the past ‘helped out’ by making donations to the Association, as it has with the other representative groups. This is at the

discretion of each year’s Executive. Since the financial situation was disclosed, VUWSA has offered support to the PSC in the form of accounting services. The PSC is looking at introducing new safeguards, though the PSC itself has not been implicated in any misuse of money. PSC Vice-President Ropeti Huntley said this was aimed at demonstrating transparency and openness within the organisation. “It has been a challenging process, but assurances can be made that the University and the parties involved are working closely together to move on, and furthermore, that there are no financial issues with the Pasifika Students’ Council.” “Furthermore, PSC extend their gratitude to all those who have shown their support during this time, particularly to the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association. We are extremely grateful,” Huntley said.

1 HOUR, 57 MINUTES

THE LENGTH OF TIME IT TOOK ARIZONA DOUBLE MURDERER JOSEPH WOOD TO DIE, AFTER HE WAS ADMINISTERED WITH LETHAL INJECTIONS.

SCOTTISH TERRIERS IN TARTAN VESTS WHO WERE INVOLVED IN THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES – ONE DOG FOR EACH COUNTRY.

155

PALESTINIAN CHILDREN MURDERED BY ISRAEL BETWEEN 8 JULY AND 24 JULY, ROUGHLY A QUARTER OF ALL VICTIMS OF THE CONFLICT.

PEOPLE OF LAST WEEK The shooting down of MH17 over Eastern Ukraine on 17 July shocked the world. All 298 people on board the flight, meant to be going from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, were killed. Intelligence strongly suggests the plane was shot down by an SA-11 BUK missile launched from an area held by Ukrainian separatists who are supported by Russia. The black boxes from the flight have been handed to Dutch authorities, who say there is no evidence of tampering.

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VUWSA MID-YEAR REPORT CARDS NAME: Sonya Clark

ROLE: President

GRADE: A

Clark has been a highly effective and active president. Moving into the role from her 2013 position of Academic Vice-President, Clark had a great degree of institutional knowledge, which she has used to her – and students’ – advantage in negotiations with University management, as well as outside bodies. Clark’s reign has seen VUWSA return to the University Council and Academic Board, and the organisation has conducted several high-profile campaigns, with progress slowly but surely being made. Clark’s dedication to the future of VUWSA is noteworthy. She is committed to the strategic planning of the organisation and the University, and is highly involved with issues including student-levy increases, student-media modernisation and changes to qualifications at the University. Clark is visibly more confident in the role than at the beginning of the year. She is a very hard worker and commits much of herself to the role. She has retained good control of her Executive, demonstrating at Executive meetings that she is thoroughly in charge while maintaining good working relationships with those around her, which is no mean feat. She has also fostered and strengthened positive relationships with other student representative groups. By her own admission, time pressures have limited Clark’s interaction with the student body at large: the hiring of a new administrative support staff member will hopefully go some way to ameliorating this. Rick Zwaan

Rawinia Thompson

Declan Doherty-Ramsay

Jordan Lipski

WELFARE VICE-PRES

ACADEMIC VICE-PRES

ENGAGEMENT VICE-PRES

TREASURER-SECRETARY

A+

C+

B+

Zwaan started the year at an advantage with a trimester as Welfare Vice-President already under his belt, having taken over midway through 2013 after the resignation of Simon Tapp. It is, then, perhaps unsurprising that Zwaan has proven himself to be the most dynamic and active member of the 2014 Executive. Zwaan’s knowledge and work ethic are evident in meetings of the VUWSA Executive, where he is a frequent and dominant contributor. He has a thorough understanding of the organisation, and a vision of where he believes VUWSA should go. He has been thoroughly involved in VUWSA’s key campaigns this year – Fairer Fares and Rental WoFs – and has been very visible through his work on VUWSA’s press releases as well as willingness to give comment. He has also been a visible presence at many VUWSA events around campus. This involvement is reflected in the 238.75 extra hours Zwaan worked last trimester. Zwaan received a generally glowing review from Salient last year, and the comment that he was “definitely staking his claim for a Presidential campaign in 2014.” Zwaan did not run for President last year, but is the obvious frontrunner for this year.

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Caroline Thirsk

The outsider, Thirsk is as close as VUWSA has to a right-wing voice this B year: coming from South Africa, she is not obviously politically aligned. Despite this status as a relative newcomer, Thirsk is forthright in meetings, and often brings a fresh perspective to discussions. As Education Officer, Thirsk is supposed to support the Academic VicePresident and VUWSA’s Education Team. As discussed, the Academic Vice-President has been very active this year, giving Thirsk a reasonably high workload. Her involvement and work have improved as her institutional knowledge have grown; Thirsk is clearly keen to progress. EDUCATION OFFICER

Stephanie Gregor

Madeleine Ashton–Martyn

CAMPAIGNS OFFICER

WELLBEING AND SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER

EQUITY OFFICER

Looking through past VUWSA reviews, it quickly becomes apparent that Campaigns Officers often find themselves sidelined when working with strong Welfare Vice Presidents. This is true of Keating, whose contributions have been overshadowed by Zwaan’s exceptional output. Keating is a generally supportive exec member, but has not independently displayed leadership. He has admitted that he could have done more in the first trimester and intends to do more this trimester. T H E

New to the VUWSA Executive, Doherty–Ramsay is the Executive member with the most VUWSAcentric social-media presence, but this has not necessarily been reflected in his achievements. Doherty– Ramsay accepted this, citing the early resignation of Elizabeth Bing among contributory factors to his issues with the role, along with lack of institutional knowledge and lack of long-term vision. The Engagement Vice-President’s role includes running VUWSA events and works to improve links with students and the community. Doherty–Ramsay writes the weekly Salient column and has been involved in running VUWSA’s joint O-Week and Stress Free Study Week. However, he suffers from a serious case of overpromising and under-delivering.

Alasdair Keating

B-

Thompson, only a second-year student, has worked shockingly hard at her job. She attends meeting after meeting: she sits on the Academic Board where she advocated strongly (and successfully) for the reintroduction of tutorials for 300-level arts subjects; she attends University Council meetings even though she doesn’t have a seat; she spoke at the Select Committee on the Bill which would cut compulsory student representation from the Uni Council. Most recently, she has expressed her concern at the way potentially triggering content is discussed in courses at the University. Thompson’s genuine concern for issues which affect students is very evident. She has gone above and beyond so far this year, working 145 hours more than she was paid for.

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Gregor’s role is a broad one, and she has worked alongside the Welfare Vice President and Equity Officer as part of the Welfare Team. She has put in a reasonable amount of work, helping with various campaigns and working 81.75 surplus hours, but has by her own admission not taken a great deal of initiative, nor contributed a lot in executive meetings. Gregor is another executive member who started off with relatively little experience and knowledge, and has improved over the course of the year.

The Equity Officer role only came into existence in 2013, and combined several existing roles. Ashton-Martyn has admirably covered the diverse range of responsibilities she has thus far this year. She was instrumental in organising the highly successful Let Me Go Home March, and has worked well with the many groups she seeks to represent. She takes initiative and often contributes in exec meetings. Ashton-Martyn has demonstrated her commitment to the role, both in working 134.5 surplus hours over the first trimester and in the quality of those hours.

A quiet achiever, Lipski is highly reliable and very, very competent. As part of his dual treasurer–secretary role, it is Lipski’s responsibility to take minutes at Exec meetings. He takes detailed, accurate minutes, which are always ready the next day – a welcome change from previous years. This attention to detail is also integral to his role as treasurer. VUWSA’s budget was passed in May this year – considerably earlier than usual – with a deficit of $42,000. This was less than anticipated. The Executive have approved further spending since the Budget was passed, with Lipski’s support. Lipski is an active member of the Executive, though he is not vocal in most meetings. Much of Lipski’s role is behind the scenes: he is a member of the Auditing and Finance Committee, VUWSA Trust, Executive Reporting Committee and Publications Committee, and works at VUWSA events and the Pipitea office. He does not often voice opinions in meetings of the Executive, but is a solid worker. Toby Cooper CLUBS AND ACTIVITIES OFFICER

A+

Cooper is super. Having started in the role later in the year after a successful by-election, Toby has re-energised his job as Clubs and Activities Officer. He has maintained a constant presence, attending clubs events and sending regular emails to clubs about what is happening at Vic. Toby is always there to offer advice and support. Cooper has spearheaded the Clubs Showcase in the Hub, a great way to increase the presence of Clubs. Perhaps what’s most impressive about Cooper is his constant enthusiasm and positivity. Every Executive needs an eager beaver who ignores the politics and gets stuck in to their role. Toby is that person.

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OPINION

DISPATCH FROM GAZA

No Joy From Joyce

by Sam Bookman

BY GRANT ROBERTSON

Sam Bookman is a Jewish student from New Zealand who was in Jerusalem when the the current Gaza conflict began to unfold. He sent this opinion piece from inside the conflict.

t’s surprising how much a car’s screech can sound like an air-raid siren. As I sit in my West Jerusalem apartment, every boy racer hooning down Betzalel Street sounds like the harbinger of a potential missile strike. More than once I’ve begun running to the apartment building’s secure area before slowly turning, relieved, back to my bedroom. Sometimes they have not been false alarms: we cower in the shelter until we hear the Iron Dome defence system shooting down the missile with its characteristic “boom” - now an integral part of the Hebrew vocabulary – before emerging back into daylight. And then that celebrated Jewish guilt sets in. Catholics will also know what I’m talking about. Because I know that no matter how scared I just felt, it is nothing compared to what people are feeling in the south of Israel in the towns of Sderot and Ashkelon, Kibbutz Kerem Shalom (“Vineyard of Peace”) or the unprotected Bedouin settlements of the Negev desert. These are where the actual casualties have been. And then comes a second awareness: that no matter how bad things are on this side of the border, things are worse in Gaza. For those of you wondering how this all started, as with anything in the Israel–Palestine Conflict, it’s hard to pinpoint. Perhaps it is the abduction of three Israeli teenagers – Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach and Gilad Shaar – hitchhiking home from their West Bank school in mid-June. Three weeks later, after recovering the bodies and arresting the suspects, the Israeli Government revealed it had long been aware that they were brutally murdered almost immediately after being kidnapped. Singing and celebrations could be heard on the recording of the attempted emergency calls of one of the boys. Israel accused Hamas; the Hamas leadership denied it. It’s likely they were killed by a local Hamas-affiliated cell, although it’s unclear the leadership knew anything about it. During the operation to recover the bodies, the Israeli army sought to destroy the West Bank Hamas infrastructure. Prisoners that had previously been released were recaptured; the brutality of the occupation was increased, particularly in the town of Hebron. The non-Hamas-associated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the murders and promised to cooperate, but the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed this. Then the rockets from Gaza – previously a trickle and normally fired by non-Hamas groups – became a torrent. Rockets reached Tel Aviv. 70 per cent of Israel was in range. Israel began airstrikes, called up reserves, and gave its operation a name: “Protective Edge”. This has been followed up by a ground invasion. Despite sounding more like a brand of razor or condom, the christening of the operation suggested a S A L I E N T

follow-up to the 2008–9 “Cast Lead” and 2012 “Pillar of Cloud” operations. Between them, those actions cost almost 1500 lives. So far (at the time of writing), 30 Israelis and 640 Palestinians have died in this round of violence. Most estimates suggest that the majority of Palestinian casualties are civilian: whole families have been wiped out. In addition to hundreds of rockets, Hamas has attempted raids into Israel through a complex network of tunnels. So far, they have been countered by the Israeli army, but not before incurring casualties. I can say from experience that no one enjoys being bombarded by rockets, especially when they are fired by a group that calls for the destruction of Israel and frequently engages in abhorrent anti-Semitism. Despite the Iron Dome, they can and do kill and maim. As the Israeli Foreign Ministry keeps repeating as its hypnotic mantra: “Every country has the right to defend itself. What would [insert country here] do in the same situation?” But there are two problems with this. The first: at what cost? The first-millennium AD Jewish book of wisdom and law, the Talmud, talks of a man whose son wants the head of a rooster as a toy to play with on the Sabbath. His father, knowing that to kill a rooster would be to break the Sabbath, goes ahead anyway. He justifies it to himself on the grounds that it was not his intention to kill the rooster, only to give his son a toy: killing the rooster was moral collateral. The Talmud rightly concludes that the father’s actions are unjustifiable. So it is with the Israeli operation in Gaza. No matter how many humanitarian truces or warnings provided before bombing (frequent), or human shields used by Hamas (also likely frequent), the decision to

can’t be stopped by force. It exists because of the desperation of the Palestinian people. Whatever religious or ideological opposition there is to them – and it is rightly extensive – Palestinians have nowhere else to turn. Personally, I find myself finding it increasingly hard to honestly say I would not act differently in the same situation. I find it even harder to rationalise the Israeli decision to put the lives of its own soldiers at risk for such paltry strategic advantage. The night after the bodies of the three Israeli teenagers were recovered, a rally in Jerusalem devolved into a lynch mob rampaging through the streets. Members of the Israeli far right chanting “Death to Arabs” assaulted Palestinians in the heart of Jerusalem’s commercial centre, clearly audible from my apartment. The following morning, the charred remains of 16year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir were found in a forest. Burned alive. The vast, vast majority of Israelis were horrified. While the Israeli rightwing leadership distanced themselves from the horrific act and the suspected murderers are now awaiting trial, the palpable atmosphere of incitement (for which many mainstream Israeli leaders are responsible) is toxically tearing the country apart. Anti-war demonstrators, from myself to the Deputy Mayor of Israel’s thirdlargest city, have been threatened and attacked in the street. The Occupation is destroying not only Palestinian society, but Israel too. There’s no doubt that Hamas are a reprehensible organisation, responsible for horrific terror attacks and war crimes. It’s sickening to see some New Zealand–based activists declaring support for their violent and anti-Semitic aims. But as long as the Occupation continues and Palestinians have nowhere else to

PALESTINIAN LOSS OF LAND 1946 to 2000

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invade one of the most densely populated places on earth has a price. Civilian casualties are not mere collateral. They are the consequence of a deliberate incursion into a desperate open-air prison, and for that, Israel is morally culpable. More importantly, it is hard to see how the assault on Gaza will reduce the rocket fire. We’ve been here before: 2008–9 and 2012. Hamas increases its rocket fire, Israel disproportionately responds, and 18 months later it happens all again. Hamas, like most liberation movements,

turn, they will be empowered. We can pray for a speedy end to the current bloodbath, but a lasting solution will not come from airstrikes. Only the end of the Occupation can curb the dangerous militarisation of both societies. That Occupation is currently perpetrated not by Hamas, but by Israel. There can be no peace without justice. As the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said: “You can’t make peace with your friends: only your enemies.” It’s time for Israel to give the Palestinians their dignity.

Two weeks ago, Salient published an exclusive news story, titled ‘Students ReJoyce’, detailing Minister for Tertiary Education Steven Joyce’s decision not to follow through with cuts to university funding that he had been considering. Grant Robertson, MP for Wellington Central and Associate Tertiary Education Spokesman for Labour, wrote the following op-ed for]Salient in response.

here was coffee on the keyboard last week when I read the headline in Salient suggesting students had something to ‘ReJoyce’ about because National had decided not to put interest back on Student Loans or course costs or further reduce lifetime limits for Student Allowances. It’s a bit like being to be delighted because your leg is being cut off at the ankle rather than the knee. The truth is that National and Steven Joyce have cut Student Loans and Allowances in every single Budget since they got into office in 2008. Maybe they did not go ahead with some – but what they did go with has caused damage. Perhaps the worst example is for postgraduate students. They are no longer eligible for Student Allowances. This has meant students, like one I have been working with from Victoria University, simply have to quit their study. This single mother is trying to finish her Clinical Psychology studies, but just can’t get by on the Loan living costs while taking on more part-time work and do her clinical placements. Steven Joyce is robbing her and New Zealand of her future. Other changes have included freezing the repayment threshold for Student Loans at $19,084, meaning people are paying back Loans well before they can really afford to, restricting access to living costs for people aged over 55, introducing a $40 annual “administration” fee on loans (interest by stealth as I like to call it) restricting access for new migrants to Loans, freezing the parental-income threshold for Allowances (meaning hundreds of students missing out on Allowance support), and the list goes on. And then there is the bizarre gimmick of introducing arrest-at-the-border provisions for borrowers who have got themselves into some bother with repayments. The Police have said they don’t have the resources to enforce this, but National has blundered on regardless to try to look tough, but actually just scaring people out of coming home. I think it’s time to re-look at the whole Loans and Allowances system. When Labour was last in office, we expanded access to Allowances and introduced interest-free Student Loans. I am proud of those achievements, but I think there is more to do. Students are still the only group in society that we ask to borrow money to eat. I am not convinced our current spend on Loans and Allowances is working. Given his track record, I have got no faith in the soothing words from Steven Joyce about his future plans for Allowances. His record is restricting access to Loans and Allowances in the same Budgets as he found money to massively increase funding for private schools. It is about priorities, and Labour will once again prioritise tertiary education and student support when we form the next government.

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TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADERSHIP STUDENTS LEARN STRATEGIES FOR WORLD DOMINATION by Laella Belkstelky

Students voluntarily attended university on a Saturday, taking part in Victoria University’s inaugural Student Leadership Conference. 130 students attended the event held last weekend, which was predominantly organised by students. Following an opening address by ViceChancellor Grant Guildford, the event kicked off with Jimi Hunt (pictured) – a motivational speaker who built the world’s largest waterslide to raise money for his depression charity, the Live More Awesome Foundation. Though no other speaker had achieved a feat quite as impressive as that, students Salient spoke to enjoyed the day. “It was brilliant. Really inspiring anecdotes and genuinely useful information for effective ethical leadership,” third-year Philosophy, Theatre and Film student Jonathan Hobman said. “I’ve been to [Victoria International Leadership Programme] events in the past and they’ve all been great; experienced speakers with interesting topics. So a full day of seminars on leadership seemed really beneficial.” The workshops were a very Victoria affair, with a number of workshops run by academics, staff and students. A VIP panel included Deborah Morris – who at 26 became New Zealand’s youngest-ever Cabinet Minister – and alumni in former VUWSA President Labour MP Chris Hipkins, Anne Molineux who became a Kapiti District Councillor when she was 22, and Jack Yan. Though Yan has twice failed at being elected Wellington Mayor, he had some good advice on the power of persistence. “It was a chance for students with little leadership experience to ‘dip their toes in the water’, as well as a professionaldevelopment opportunity for those students already playing leadership roles on campus,” organising Chair student Taylor Hughson said.

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Interview with Emily Perkins by by Simon Simon Gennard Gennard Emily Perkins is a Vic graduate who studied at the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). She has published four novels, including The New Girl and Novel About My Wife. Perkins is now back at Vic, teaching at the IIML. Her most recent novel The Forrests, published in 2012, follows the titular family from New York to a suburb of Auckland. The novel relies on ellipsis, on the fragmentation of narrative, on scrutiny fixed and released repeatedly on the novel’s central character Dorothy. Through her lens, the reader is privy to a life constituted of banal successes and disappointments, of relationships that form and dissipate. Simon Gennard spoke to her about her writing and the literary culture in New Zealand. Something I’ve noticed about your work is a kind of non-specificity in regards to place the setting of Not Her Real Name is very much Wellington, but it also feels like a very malleable place. I noticed something similar in The Forrests’ Auckland. What role does place play in your work? For me it’s about atmosphere. I don’t tend to be led by a specific place… I’m very interested in the specifics of place and the effects the environment has on people, but much more in a way that’s about mood and atmosphere than about practicalities, or anything you might find on a map. When I put in names of identifiable places, sometimes that’s because it seems a bit less naff than making something up. You don’t want to distract the reader: you don’t want them to be thinking, “Oh that doesn’t sound like that”, or “Why doesn’t she just say Auckland when she’s saying some horrible invented name.” The Forrests opens with the jerky camera movements of a father filming his children playing. This kind of fragmentary image seems central to the structure of the narrative. Did you intend to write a novel that reads like a series of fragments, or did it develop during writing? It was one of those happy accidents, I think, which you have to always been listening out for when you’re writing. What’s that thing that… Brian Eno, what’s his series of doctrines... Oblique strategies, “Honour thy mistake as a hidden intention.” Hidden intention is the key phrase. There’s some instinct at work, I think. Sometimes those things work and sometimes they don’t. S A L I E N T

It’s just about listening out for it. Initially, I thought I was writing short stories, and then quite early on I decided to link them together and have it work as that discontinuous narrative. The main impetus for that was an essay by a British philosopher called Galen Strawson that a friend sent me. I was so struck by what he said about the current fashion for narrativity – to talk about all kinds of things in the world as though they’ve got a narrative, this kind of continuous sense-making, storytelling way of understanding things that happens in science and medicine and philosophy. He’s questioning that whole idea and talking about the idea of memory; you know, people not always remembering themselves as one kind of continuous self, but maybe having memories of different stages of life that feel like they actually were other people. Eleanor Catton, in an interview withThe Guardian last year, spoke of the local reaction to The Luminaries, saying: “People whose negative reaction has been most vehement have all been men over about 45.” What are your thoughts about New Zealand’s critical culture? Is there a kind of hangover from the 20thcentury masculinist tradition still present in our critical culture? I’d say that for a long time, three of the strongest literary critics in a mainstream publication like the Listener were Jolisa Gracewood, Paula Morris and Charlotte Grimshaw. Three women, of roughly my generation. So I don’t think it is just the preserve of men of a certain age, but I think there are so many other ways in which those voices dominate the media. I guess I’m just saying maybe I don’t read that kind of criticism. I suppose the criticism that I find really interesting and enjoy reading seems to come from all kinds of different voices, and often is couched in essays, and isn’t necessarily what you might be able to get out of a very short book review in the newspaper. It might be on The Pantograph Punch, or on somebody’s blog or something like that. I actually think there are a whole range of interesting and diverse minds writing about things, including

literature, but maybe not specialising in quite the same way or being published in quite such a boundary way, which might make them harder for people to find. When did you decide you wanted to be a writer? I don’t know about “be a writer”; I mean, I always liked writing because I really loved reading. I really identified as a reader, more than anything else. I mean, no one ever asks a seven-yearold, “What are you? What do you do?” but I felt like, I almost felt like a book. If you know what I mean. I was almost more of a book than a person. It wasn’t until I did the course here at Vic in ‘93 that I ever actually finished anything... It was being in that environment with people, with each other’s work, talking about it, you know; it was just the most fun I’ve had. What do you remember reading as a student? That’s a really good question: I think it’s such a crucial time for reading, and also, just after finishing university is such a crucial time. It was around the time when Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney were first being published. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks’ essay, made a big impression on me. I must have read Wide Sargasso Sea sometime around then. Absolutely loved that. I loved Orlando, the Virginia Woolf novella. I can’t remember the specifics of it now but I feel like quite a lot of what I read was quite politically charged in terms of being about gender. Paul Auster – oh my God – totally got into him around that age. When I think about it now, a lot of it’s got a certain chill to it. I don’t know if that would draw me in as much now. I understand you wrote a testimony in support of Potroast’s Creative NZ funding application a couple of years ago. Could you tell me what you think of New Zealand’s small-press culture? Well I think it’s wonderful, and vital. It’s not just people who are coming through the universities who are setting those things up, or through the writing Master’s. I think there are these activities, small presses, websites, and in a much less public way, writing groups and discussion groups that are absolutely vital: they are the health of what’s going on. There are some really talented, energised people out there. I think Ya-Wen Ho is one of them, and the people who run Pantograph Punch, and it’s something that the university magazines are probably part of feeding as well.

not trying to start a family, or buy a house, and then that sort of activity just becomes much much harder, to sustain that level of commitment. I think crowdfunding does really great things, but I really don’t like the idea that we should all be relying on it. You know, start off, prove yourself, get money from people who are more established and can afford it, and want to support it and all of that, but with all that work there’s such a danger of it all going nowhere, and it evaporating. I think what the danger is is that that level of talent and experience doesn’t get supported, particularly around that sort of early–mid career level. What are you working on currently? I’m working on a couple of drama projects, so that’s kind of different for me, and partly, some short fiction. I’m a very slow writer: it takes me quite a while for a book to leave my system and be able to start properly in a fresh way on something else. I’m only ever interested in doing something if it’s urgent and new to me.

“I don’t know about “be a writer”; I mean, I always liked writing because I really loved reading. I really identified as a reader, more than anything else. I mean, no one ever asks a seven-year-old, “What are you? What do you do?” but I felt like, I almost felt like a book. If you know what I mean. I was almost more of a book than a person.”

Following on from that: they were initially successful with their funding application, but it wasn’t renewed. And Hue & Cry’s first three books were all crowdfunded. It’s exciting but also kind of precarious. And that’s always a problem, because it’s okay to have that sort of precariousness when you’re starting out or when you’re younger, and when you’re E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

rugby player, or like you work in oil and gas. We were both really bored and so we used to go round with a stencil. We started out as stencil artists and would spend days and days and days cutting these tiny little stencils. We had like a Pringles face, a little Monopoly man. Then we realised how long it took to do it – he’d be on his side of the street doing his little dude and I’d by on my side doing my little thing and it’d take forever. We realised it wasn’t that efficient so we thought why don’t we just do this together. So we started making stencils together. While one person was painting the other was looking out for cops and that sort of shit. It was fast. It grew from there. We moved to Wellington to go to university once we finished high school. I’m an ex-Vic student and he went to Massey.

What does BMD stand for? That’s probably the biggest secret. Only three people know. None of my girlfriends have ever known. We keep it to ourselves. It’s the identity and not the name that’s important. There is a certain mystique about street artists BMD – everyone knows their surrealist wall paintings dotted around Wellington, but few know the painters. Salient got coffee with one half of the elusive but prolific street-artist duo and learnt a bit about the men behind the (paint) masks. Tell us about BMD’s beginnings. BMD is a two-piece sort of band. We grew up together in small town New Plymouth. It’s a pretty boring town; not sure if you’ve been there. You’re either a farmer, or a 10

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What’d you study? I did Environmental Science. As I say, I was like Batman: by day I was going to lectures and writing notes on all sorts of shit – economics and stats and all the boring stuff – but you look through my notes and I was just drawing the whole time. Scraping through class and trying to get the right marks. But then at night time I’d go out with him and my Massey buddies and get pissed and go tagging, pretty much. By that time, we were looking at what was happening in the city, and there were a few stencil artists around doing some cool stuff. We realised we could do it quicker if we were painting. We started painting on paper doing post-ups. It’s quite a big city so there’s lots of room for heaps of stickers, heaps of posters. From that, we realised it wasn’t lasting long enough. People were tagging over our stuff and it was kind of annoying to put all that effort in with little return. It was sort of like an arms race; the evolution of our style has been an arms race against what happens in the city. We started getting a ladder and going higher, above where people could reach. It meant our stuff lasted longer. That got bigger and bigger until we started using scissor lifts and things like that. So the problem was more that other taggers were tagging over your work rather than the police painting over it? Yeah, the Council in Wellington dropped the ball. Like, I think they have been quite slow to respond to graffiti, and I think it would take a shitload of funding to clean it up. Auckland is all very clean and grey and boring but down here they have a harder time managing it. Possibly because of the density of youth in S A L I E N T

the city as well – two universities, small city. Auckland’s more dispersed. We never had many run-ins with the Council. We’ve had a few run-ins with police. How’s your relationship with the cops? Well, we painted illegally for years and years and still dabble in it a little bit. But we generally work with people. You get away with a bit more if they’ve agreed for you to use their wall. When you’re operating on a big-scale painting, you’ve gotta work with people, I think. What’s the process you follow from idea to wall? We’re pretty loose with how we do it. Most of our work started on a napkin. One of the biggest things we’ve done started on the back of a Pak’nSave receipt – we’ve gone there to get dinner and just had an idea. A lot of our work is conceptual, so it’s all about getting a spark – like a woman in a bath made out of cats – and going from there. If you do realism, it’d be hard to then do them so big. Our ideas start very micro and it develops – what materials we can use, what space we can paint on. One of our values is ‘prolific originality’. We don’t want our stuff to look like anyone else’s; just our own. We try to do two or three a week between Wellington and Auckland. The other half of BMD has just moved up to Auckland to replicate what we’ve got down here. Do you have a day job, or is BMD it? It’s pretty sad being an artist. Most artists can relate. We do alright – we’ve done some paid jobs and private commissions. We get a huge amount of enquiries for canvas prints, but we don’t do that. As part of our identity, we don’t really do sellable, tradeable art. We try to navigate those people into doing a private wall. Private commissions that are not resellable is our bread and butter. No one owns a BMD artwork unless they own a building or they’re a charity. What are your favourite pieces of work? I’m really proud of what we did on the side of the Museum Hotel. We’ve got a job doing the swimming pool there at the moment; they’re gonna empty it out and we’ll paint it up. We’ll do some sharks and some marine creatures so you’re sort of swimming round with them. The owner there is a real avid supporter of what we do and art in general. I really like the cat girl in the bath. That was for the band @peace for their album. They turned it into a digital version of the artwork and put it online when they released some songs. We try to collaborate with people like that – they’re upcoming rappers and we are building ourselves up as visual artists, which are both hard sells. But we pulled together with the Young Gifted & Broke collective, which is a group of young people with different skill sets who get together to collab. Is your work graffiti, or is at an S A L I E N T

“I know people who spend six months on a painting, and like, what the fuck, ya know? They hate it in the end: it looks like a photo and I just don’t get it. It ends up in some old lady’s hallway and it’s dark and no one looks at it. Boring. That dude spent six months on that.” art form? Or is it both? Neither? We’re a real hybrid. One of us is from a Fine Arts background. He could paint you looking like you and frame it up in a gallery. He’s an incredible visual artist, but he just loves painting the way we do in public space. It’s a nice vehicle to get people to see your work. I know people who spend like six months on a painting, and like, what the fuck, ya know, like they hate it in the end: it looks like a photo and I just don’t get it. It ends up in some old lady’s hallway and it’s dark and no one looks at it. Boring. That dude spent six months on that. We’ve been doing BMD time trials, seeing how quickly we can do an artwork. We can do an artwork in like six minutes, five minutes. And it’s big, it’s like as big as that wall [points to decent-sized wall]. We sort of do it to have a dig at those guys, ‘cos they spend so long and are so particular about their work, where it can be produced quite quickly. People say art is dying among young kids because they’re not going to galleries anymore, but art is just changing. I think with the internet age we’re in, like with Tumblr, why go to a gallery when you can curate your own little exhibition online? You choose what you want to follow: nude people, architecture, coffee joints around the world, art, whatever; you can tailor it to yourself. On a rainy shitty day, of course a kid’s gonna stay in bed and look at that. Y’know, like I would. I do! Tell us about your work in Christchurch, because you did a massive blue wall painting in the central city as well. That particular project piggybacked off what we did in Museum. We got real sick of blue! To this day, I don’t even want to use blue. We learnt a lot from that. Christchurch is a cool city, we’re trying to get back down there. There’s nothing round and some buildings are still half fallen down. It’s mind-blowing. I didn’t know from what I’d seen in the media. Arts a pretty good fix for a gritty situation like that. Places like Detroit have a huge arts scene now because the economy died: there’s a huge amount of space, cheap rent. People go there: it’s a hotspot now. I think Christchurch is a smaller scale of that too. It’s grim and people like to paint there and add value to the space. What do you think of art as a social tool? You also did the shark mural on the wall by the Chaffers New World in protest

against shark finning. In the last year, we’ve realised the value of public space and how good it is to convey messages. We were approached about that project by the WWF and we said we could do something. Since then it’s just been crazy. I’ve gone to schools talking about, they take kids down there and talk about it for conservation. We did the artwork but didn’t really realise the repercussions. The Conservation Minister’s standing there in front of it saying he’s banning shark finning on the news. It was a marketing challenge; everyone hates sharks. So we wanted to paint a fun little thing that my Nana could like. You hear the kids going, “Oh, it’s got an anus”, or, “That one’s wearing sunglasses”, and it’s funny. A shark’s just a thing that’s not so bad. Is it just conservation issues that you deal with in your art? It’s not just that. We’ve got some cool projects coming up which might shock a few people. We’ve got BMDisyourfriend as our social-media and online presence. That’s the light side. And we might launch BMDisnotyourfriend which will be the dark side. Life’s a crazy thing, and we want to start talking about what’s happening in the world. We want to talk about issues like suicide and economic change and grim shit. We want to have the stuff that we do but not have it as the same identity as the other stuff. It will be good to have people talking who aren’t just the Government. What are Wellington’s street artists like? It’s a mixed bag. You’ve got dudes that will spend their rent money and their food money on painting graffiti, totally selfless acts just to create art, right through to the dude who’ll steal the clothes off your line and tag on your fence. There’s a spectrum of being a good person and being an arsehole and everyone sits along that. Graffiti generally has lots of people on the other end, people who are out for themselves. It’s an ego thing. I got to say it’s fucken fun, I’ve done it. But it doesn’t add value to the world that much; it just advances those people. It’s got a place in society, but it’s important you go about it in a good way. Don’t tag my fence. Where is BMD in ten years? It’s been going ten years already, which is scary. Might be even longer than that, but I try to deny it. I’m moving overseas soon to replicate what we’ve done over here. Where are you going? I’m going to Melbourne, so I’m a total sellout. I’ll be back and forward though, so it will be fun.

In ten years, we want to be the biggest. Not in terms of fame but in terms of scale. From day one, we wanted to make the biggest artwork. I think we’re almost there in New Zealand. Shark Wall or The Blueprint might be the biggest visual artwork in New Zealand. We want that all around the world, just giant walls. Any tips for people wanting to go from being a small street artist to having big murals all over town? Be nice to people. And add value. There’s a big difference between adding and taking value in the public’s perception of street art. Being nice is essential. Our good friend Askew in Auckland is like the nicest dude ever and I really credit that to him being where he is. There’s a lot of dicks round. Have many people destroyed your works? Does that piss you off? Yeah, but I don’t get pissed off. Nothing lasts forever. I think when you put it out there, it’s in the sphere: you can’t really fall in love with it. Sort of the rule is that, “If you can burn it, you can earn it”, but I don’t know how that ever applied. If you do something and put more effort in, it’s yours. But if someone just does a cheap tag, I’ll get angry. I know a lot of them, so if I see them, I’ll say: “You motherfucker.” I don’t mind as long as people have gone to more effort. Art’s subjective, so those are about the only rules there are. There’s some respect out there for the work, but there will always be people who hate it. You can’t please everyone. The fastest way to please no one is to try to please everyone. There’s always going to be the dude who hates it, but you’ve got to accept it. It’s that nature of competition that’s got us where we are: people were hating us so we thought differently and started painting above them. We went bigger and more prolific and then asked them: now what are you going to do? Hate can lead you two different ways: you can say fuck this shit and stop what you’re doing, or you can use it to take you higher. Was there anything you wanted to say to the people? I dunno. Don’t do drugs. BMD created the cover of this issue exclusively for Salient. They also painted a special piece for Victoria students on the columns of the Cable Car bridge near Weir House. Check it out.

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BALANCING BOWLS by Annabelle Nichols

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by Famous anon person

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DOMESTIC CITYSCAPES by Mata Freshwater

DOODLES by Abe Hollingsworth

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IN THE DARK

Courtney studies English Literature and Theatre.

By Courtney Brown

I wait until I hear the sound of her snoring. I get out bed and give both Mr Bearington and Barney (not the real one, my one) a kiss. They’re under my blankets pretending to be me. I’m sure it’s fun. Normally they don’t have the whole bed to themselves, since I’m stuck in between them, making sure they’re not getting into any fights. Mummy left the door open for me after she kissed me goodnight, because the dark is scary. I slither like a snake through the gap in the door; hiss, hiss, hiss. I do this quietly though since now I’m out of my room. I hold my breath, my heart is beating too loud and I’m sure that mum will hear it. There are lots of shadows in the hallway, I try and stay away from them as I tiptoe past mum and dad’s room. I’m super-fast like a ninja. Mummy had said that daddy would be home late. So I’m staying up late so he can kiss me good night, and make sure the monster under my bed isn’t there before I go to sleep. Mummy said that she’d do it for him, but she doesn’t know how to do it properly. She only looked once, and you’re meant to look two times, and then come back and look again to trick him. The monster is still under my bed, and I can’t go back in there, or he’ll grab my feet and gobble me right up. I go to sit down in the kitchen and my tummy grumbles. Dinner was ages ago. I open the pantry door, and even though I’m not allowed to, I open a packet of chips, which is ‘school lunch food’. I try to eat them quietly, but each bite goes crunch, crunch, crunch. I wonder if it’ll be quieter if I eat it all in one bite. (I don’t want to wake mummy up, she’ll be mad.) I shove a chip straight into my mouth and go to bite it, but it’s too big it gets caught in my throat. Ow it hurts. It’s sharp, what if it cuts my throat open and I’ll never be able to eat and drink again, because it’ll all fall out. I cough, chomping my jaw. It goes down. Water. I need water. I start to cry. I want mummy to help. But if she comes down I have to go back to bed. I drag the chair to the bench, and climb on top of it. I turn the tap on, and shove my head under, I

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know I’m not supposed to do that, but I want to stop the hole from being made. Snot runs down my face and onto my Superman pyjamas, but he’s not worried, nothing bothers Superman. Not even having green streaks in his hair. I sit down on the chair. Maybe that’s why school lunch food is only for school, it’s too dangerous to eat at home. The chair is too hard. I decide to sit in the lounge and surprise daddy from there instead. I like the couch, it’s black and leather, it feels cool. Like cool people would have it in their house, like a rock star. When I’m older I’ll be a rock star, I’m learning how to play the recorder at school, I’m the best in my class. Sometimes I get to play the triangle too. I pull the blanket from the arm of the couch and go to put it on top of me as I lie down. I hear a creak of the floorboards and freeze. I throw the blanket over my head. The monster is coming. The monster is coming! I pull the blanket close to my eyes, I can see through the little holes. Oh it was just Patches, silly old thing. Patches starts to meow, I tell him to shh, it’s very rude to make noise when people are trying to sleep, and especially when they’re trying to wait for someone. I go to hug Alan the Alien to my chest, but he’s not here. He’s still back in my room. That means I have to go back past mum and dad’s room again. I can’t not have him with me though. Dad gave him to me, he’s very special. He’s green of course, all aliens are. And he’s the size of my hands, so normally he sits in my pocket, dad brought him home one day while we were waiting outside the supermarket. There was a machine with a claw, I forget what they’re called, and I had been trying to get Alan. But the machine kept eating all of my money and I couldn’t save him from being trapped. Dad had been getting angry I had already had three goes, and he told me that I shouldn’t cry over it, that’s something that girls do. But I had wanted Alan so badly, dad ended up getting him for me. He’s very strong. All he had to do was shake the machine because it was misbehaving, and Alan was free. I get up off the couch and Patches

follows me, and meows, like he’s telling me off. I give him a little nudge with my foot, like what dad does to him, and he leaves me alone. I can move to my room quicker now, my eyes can see better in the dark because I’ve eaten lots of carrots. Alan the Alien is lying on the floor by my bed. He must have been trying to follow me! He can only move very slowly. I pick him up and hold him tightly in my hand so I don’t forget him again. The shadows are bigger in the hallway now. I have to run quickly because the monster moves easier when it’s dark. When we’re on the couch, I try and not laugh. Alan the Alien and me are being so naughty, and we haven’t gotten caught. We’re just like spies! Alan likes the blanket; it’s all bumpy and reminds him of his home planet. He likes Earth now, but can’t help but miss Neptune, everything’s blue there. We jump over the mountains that the blanket creates. We are explorers exploring. It is a long and dangerous journey. It has to do a lot of jumps and twists, sometimes going back in the other direction because it’s not safe. Next we’re in a cave, and it’s filled with buried treasure, but you can’t touch anything because then you’re greedy, just like in Aladdin. The only thing I want is for daddy to come home, but I don’t find it here. I wonder what time he’ll finish work. I’ve been waiting ages. Maybe this time he’ll bring me a present! I haven’t stayed up late for him before, I’m sure it’ll be a nice surprise. I would normally listen to mummy, but dad hasn’t been home since last Monday, that’s eight whole days. The last time he went away for this long I got a present. That’s when I got Barney. It wasn’t even my birthday or anything. He gave it to me when I fell over and got stiches. Three right above my eye. It happened because I got in the way and wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was naughty. Dad said not to tell mum, that it would be our little secret. Just the two of us. He even pinkie promised it, and you can’t break those. But I think that he told mum and to punish me he had to leave a while before he came back. I yawn and stretch out my arms and legs making sure that they’re still under the

blanket because that’s how I stay safe from the monster. Tick tock, tick tock. I wonder if our clock has a mouse in it. Like in that nursery rhyme mum used to sing. That would be cool. I try to read on the clock but I get confused, about which hand says which. I must have fallen asleep. My mouth is dry and I crunch up my nose, it smells bad. I want to cry. I haven’t wet the bed for ages mum and dad will be so mad. And now my favourite pyjama pants are all wet. Alan the Alien can’t do anything to help, he never ever wet his bed when he was growing up. Everyone’s going to be so angry at me. There’s a bang, and a crash, and a thud. A key’s at the door. Dad’s home? I run to the door to open it. It looks like dad, kinda he’s all dark because there’s not much light. He smells like he normally does, he’s had lots of his special drinks. I know this because he has to lean against the doorframe. He comes inside but walks funny. “Daddy!” I yell holding my hands up. “Christ’pher? What are ya doin’ up?” “To surprise you silly.” He doesn’t pick me up. I put my hands down. “Alan the Alien stayed up to see you too.” “Tha’s great Chrisss- wha’s that smell?” I look at Alan and we look at the ground. “Christ’pher?” He grabs onto my pyjama shirt, I think that he wants to wear it too, but it’s too small to fit the both of us.

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“MAYBE THIS TIME HE’LL BRING ME A PRESENT! I HAVN’T STAYED UP LATE FOR HIM BEFORE, I’M SURE IT’LL BE A NICE SURPRISE. I WOULD NORMALLY LISTEN TO MUMMY, BUT DAD HASN’T BEEN HOME SINCE LAST MONDAY, THAT’S EIGHT WHOLE DAYS. THE LAST TIME HE WENT AWAY FOR THIS LONG I GOT A PRESENT.” “Did ya wet the bed again?” “No! Alan did.” But he already knows that Alan the Alien didn’t. He puts his face next to mine. It looks different. His eyes are all dark and his lips are red, like mummy does to hers when she goes out. His hair is long too and he’s wearing tall shoes. I don’t know why though, he’s already taller than me and mummy. I reach out and touch his hair it’s all dry and hard, I wonder how it got it to grow so fast. He falls backwards and takes his hair off, now it’s back to normal and he has the same cut as mine. Clipped nicely beneath the ears and at the bottom of the neck, that’s how I have to have it for school otherwise I could get into trouble. “Go to yer room Chrissst’pher.” Dad goes to stand and puts his hand on the table by the door and knocks over the vase filled with pretty flowers that

mum picked from the garden. It falls with a loud crash, and Patches runs away, I cover my laugh with my hand. Dad’s hand is bleeding and I walk towards him. Ow, ow, ow. Something has gotten into my foot but I don’t want dad to get blood on my present, he hasn’t given it to me yet, he must be hiding it behind his back. “Where is it daddy?” Daddy says a bad word and holds his hand. If we were at Michael’s house he would have to put a dollar into the swear jar. If we had a swear jar it would be full with lots of dollars. “Where’s wha’?” “My present!” I stand in front of him giggling; he’s made it a game. I chase his hands that he puts behind his back so I can’t see what he’s gotten me. The lights turn on and the floor is covered with glass, it looks like diamonds, and daddy has blood all along his hand and his arm and some is on his face. Mummy comes to the kitchen, she lifts

me up underneath my armpits where it hurts the most and brings me back to the couch. But as she does I notice that daddy’s wearing a dress! Like a girl does, I didn’t know that men could wear dresses and paint their faces too. They start screaming and I cover my ears because I start screaming too. Alan doesn’t scream though he doesn’t like the noise. Mummy comes into the lounge and grabs me by the arm, but it hurts she pulled too hard and now there are dots of red on my skin. She takes me to the bathroom, puts me in the bath, and turns the shower on. “But I’m wearing my clothes!” I scream. Mummy doesn’t listen the water turns yellow and red from the blood on my foot. There’s a loud banging and voices, mum shuts the bathroom door and puts the laundry basket in front of it. “I want Alan!” “Shhh Christopher darling. Please be good for mummy. You were very naughty staying up late for daddy.” I shut my mouth, a giant lump is stuck in my throat, and I sniff. “That’s a good boy.” She runs shampoo through my hair, but it’s not my one it’s hers and it smells like flowers. I don’t want to smell like flowers. The banging happens on our door. Mum jumps as the door looks like it will pop out of its place in the wall. Dad’s calling her name, the one she had before she become mummy. He never calls her that when I’m around. Mum doesn’t say anything, climbs

into the bath with me, and turns off the water. She pulls me close to her chest and starts shaking. I didn’t know that adults could cry, especially mums. After a while dad stops knocking and yelling and making any sound so we get out of the bath. Mum gives me a towel, one of her nice soft ones that I’m not normally allowed to use. I wrap it around me like a mummy, the ones inside tombs in Egypt, I go to walk like a mummy too all slow with my arms out, but the real mummy (mum) stops me. She has her ear to the door and is acting like a spy like I was before. Oh no, is the monster out there? He doesn’t normally come out when the lights are on or when people are awake. I hold onto mummy, I will protect her. We leave the bathroom and then that’s when you guys come. Big men at the end of the hallway, dressed in blue. Mum goes all stiff, like she’s being a mummy too. She’s being strange. But you say hello to me and smile and have nice hats and one of you is holding a clipboard. “Do you want to meet Alan the Alien?” I ask. “Of course.” You all say. I tell them how I got him and they seem very interested and write it down. They ask me lots and lots of questions and give me cookies and milk. They ask about tonight and give me a plaster for my foot. So I tell them my adventure and start from the beginning. “I wait until I hear the sound of her snoring. I get out of bed and. . .”

Ted is a Law and International Relations student. He is really interested in cut-up beat poetry, of which this is an example. He has been writing for as long as he can remember and is currently working on getting his first novel published.

S A L I E N T

E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

Emilie Marschner is a recent Expressive Arts

Simon Gennard is a fugly slut. Do not trust him.

grad who is now freaking out about adult life.

He studies English and Art History

S U N I H C E T N

ARD N N E G N BY SIMO

AST LLAST LOLLY LOLLY IN THE THE IN $2 MIX MIX $2 by Emilie Marschner

It seemed like the end of the world but it wasn’t. Something that worked previously had stopped working. He could feel it just below the stomach. Not throbbing. More like a ticking sensation, but the opposite. Denoting a shortage of time in its absence. He was not, by nature, a fatalist, but he knew it was time for drastic measures. This was an opportunity, he decided, to strip himself of inhibition, to make rash decisions, to stop apologising. This was an opportunity to drain all the potential inside him.

He wasn’t interested in conversation anyway, so he told himself. There wasn’t time for it. He would find the first willing collaborator and stick it in. He might ask her name, feign interest in her ambitions. He certainly wouldn’t indulge more than two or three.

It was very late in winter, almost spring. Where he lived nothing froze, but things got wet for a few months. Each day the sun would rise a little higher and lure a little more moisture from the soil. By mid afternoon it would feel like all the water down below had gone for good. Out of reach, at least. Up in the canopies. It sank again in the evening, resting for a few hours just above the ground, making the air thick and heavy.

His friends, his fellow men, experienced similar symptoms. Conceiving of no alternative, they dealt with their respective predicaments in a similar way. It could have been a final burst of catharsis, a deflation of feeling, an effort to make sure every anxiety was voiced before time was up. A kind of camaraderie formed, a healthy competition between men.

This particular absence, so it happened, manifested itself in an overwhelming desire to fuck. He had previously managed to convince himself of his own appeal, but he had never allowed himself to act in exactly the way he thought he could get away with. Maybe it was in his hair. Maybe some kind of scent. He’d seen, more than once, his reflection in the window of a dark building and he’d watched how heads would do their best not to turn. In the early evening, the wind picked up, ever so slightly, and carried with it the thin layer of moisture on his brow, under his arms. Right now, the world was on his side. His seed, from now on, was a hot commodity. It was his moral duty, for the good of his species, to dispense it liberally. He couldn’t talk to women, obviously. The only one he’d ever spent time with was his mother and he hadn’t spoken to her for three or four months. They all seemed to congregate together. They had their own cramped little spaces and their own conversations. From a distance he could see that some of them slept for twice as long as he did. A lot of them spent a lot of time caring for children.

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I S S U E .

I S S U E 1 5

Starting wasn’t easy but it wasn’t hard either. He gathered momentum quickly. Suppressed the urge to lie and stare at the sky afterwards. Stopped looking anyone in the eye. Grew louder and more fierce than he usually was but it wasn’t directed at anything in particular.

He trained himself to fuck for fourteen hours straight. Nap briefly. Move on. He grew tired, but didn’t stop. His ribs grew heavy around his lungs. He knew he had ceased living up to his reputation. He could hear things being said. Things about shortcomings. He didn’t mind. He was doing this for no one else but himself. He began coughing up phlegm with every pained thrust. His immune system started to fail. Tufts of hair would fall out seconds before orgasm. By now he was eating nothing, rarely sleeping, having visions of oblivion. He kept going. He refused to heed any warning about overindulgence, spat at concerned acquaintances and their talk of moderation. He’d scuttle off swiftly as he was finishing before anyone had a chance to notice the blood pooling in his eye sockets. Frothed saliva at the sides of his mouth. Whiskers falling from his little face as he went. Not long after he began, in the middle of September, he broke. He found himself a hole inside a tree trunk and climbed inside. Black tailed, blue balled, muscles disintegrating from stress, parasites gnawing at his intestines, muttering something inaudible about how much more he had left to offer the world, he died.

You bought a $2 mix from the corner dairy. On my lunch break we sat on the crumbling dirt steps out back, under the prickly afternoon sun. You handed me a fruit rascal and told me your morning. I wanted to pick one myself but you kept the bag ziplocked in your lap, handing me milk bottles one at a time, smiling, an artificial blue stain on your gums. I bit hard through the Jaffa shell, sugar granules cracked on my teeth, I admired how nicely packaged you were, sharp black, a crisp blue tee shirt; it clashed with the green snifters cupped in your palm and my green apron. We sucked sherbet fizzies and crunched chocolate buttons, pooling into messy kisses over my tongue. Your arm around my waist, too tight, like plastic frills on boiled candy. Snowflake dust collected in the folds of plastic we scraped the last of it out of the bag, I let the end drabs dissolve over my lips, form a candied shell against yours. You took a final kiss, sucked it from my sticky lips with your tough straps of liquorice, and left me to work, an ulcer throbbing in the fold of my tongue.

S A L I E N T

Merenia is studying CREW 256, a Maori and Pasifika

Creative

Writing

course

under

the

direction of Tina Makereti. It’s the first of its kind

Ari studies Law and Commerce and wishes she studied at Toi Whakaari.

at Victoria.

A POEM FOR A PAPER

Building on The Round by Merenia Gray

Rhythm transcends festive steps passed and being passed down Golden veils shed light on dawn serendipitously . . . gathering timeless sources of charities humour

wisdom Vast karakia enduring knotted bows cracked beyond this mortal coil grace takes time Momentarily poised sipping tea exhale take form take flight monarch Adorned minds filling the void build on the round illuminate the hidden-ess of grace Nga wahine whakapai kokiri ki te mate hoki ki te ora radiate light of blissful dispense complete the round

The poem is my interpretation of the research I did around the Three Graces in Botticelli’s La Primavera and the poetry of ancient Greek lyrical poet Pindar. The poem informs the imagery of my dance film to be premiered at the Tempo and Wellington Dance Festivals later this year.

S A L I E N T

by Ari Luecker

Sometimes I wish I was into the one night stand You know the one, it ends with the got-laid parade the next morning The celebratory walk of shame showing all that yes, I did bang some random with a body I may or may not have liked to get some old school satisfaction and guess what, it lasted all night. I hear his voice on the radio sing “You’ll get what’s coming to you” Well, good or bad it hasn’t been happening and I want what’s coming But just because I may or may not be frustrated doesn’t mean I won’t want my dues for other reasons. I want to scratch this itch but not because of the booty on that cutie, but I’m selfish by name selfish by nature and probably the desire for a brief love affair is due to my perfection at exorcising away the gnawing pain of rejection Most of the reason I want the d is because there’s this creeping fear in me that I’ll never be looked at like I’m precious and priceless A piece of art, an enveloping canvass of colors, the different sides of my personality and features and faults and desires That no one will care enough to uncover my baggage and go through my suitcase Find the dirty, the naughty, the bad taste and still look at me and see beautiful That no one will bother to look beyond the surface, won’t bid at my auction And art left alone is like a tree in the forest, forever silent in fall I constantly fall, constantly falter, never meet my expectations or those of my mother, who cares but in a way that makes me want to shoot something She doesn’t even know I’m writing this poem or wanting to just give up And end up in a stranger’s bed, clothes on the floor, thoughts in my head of all those bed time stories, the lies about finding true love at 16, shut up no boy knocked on my door with flowers and told me I was pretty In fact Trying to think of a person who I haven’t let down is an exercise in self despair and I’ve never liked running or weights That’s why the one nighter, the sleepover, the hit it and quit it. The real fear is that even if someone does look and see and know I will ruin us both because all I’ve done somehow still adds up to not good enough Being left alone after being held might be the bitterest form of hell I’m not ready for damnation yet, so I’ll stick with my taste of the fire of passion, here one night, gone before dawn so I don’t have to see your face and feel my own eyes widen at the audacity of what I’ve done, used you for my own purposes Because really, I’m not meant for the one night stand can’t take it, can’t choke it, the heat from the fire is kicking me out of the kitchen, onto your doorstop, away from the devastation I’ve wrought there. As much as I’d like to think I’m worldly enough for a quick tumble under the sheets and a quick escape to the streets I know In the dark of the night, possibly during and after, I’d tear myself apart with the thoughts of disaster, of how this is just another way I’m letting me down. It wouldn’t go well, I’d probably cry and make whoever the guy is feel terrible but it really would be “it’s not you, it’s me” It’s me I’ve come apart at the seams and am now trying to stitch it up, make it better but all I am doing is picking at threads because I’m bored and whatever What’s the answer to life, heartache and loneliness? 42? I tried that it didn’t work Maybe the stand is just PMS or me second guessing my own self esteem I know loving and leaving is not my scene, I’m in for the long run the enduro, the mission even though I hate running, I’m made for the marathon from ignition to my end in flames and love’s the only phoenix rising from the ashes in these sort of games. So I’ll wait and I’ll hope, standing in the forest, praying for someone to hear me fall. But I feel like life might be easier if sometimes I was into the one night stand.

E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

CURIOSITIES ZINE by Simon Gennard

by Julia Watkin

by Henry Cooke

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by Jeremy Young

S A L I E N T

EVERYDAY GENDER ZINE by Mata Freshwater

by Craig Doolan

DOODLES by George Johnson

by Sam Munneke

S A L I E N T

E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

Beth Rust is a second-year student studying

SHEETS SUN W

hen you were very small your mother used to hang the washing up on sunny days. You loved to hide in the sheets that hung down almost to the ground. It was a tent, it was your own little white world. Nothing could reach you in there. The insects’ singing would rise up around you, and the sun would hit your bare feet, and washing powder and sunshine on cotton were the safest smells in the world. The smell of his sheets means something different. It means hot afternoons, sunlight finding its way through the gap in his curtains. It means his fingers pulling up your school skirt, the one that still doesn’t sit quite right on your hips. It means his lips against your neck as he moves above you. It means knotting your fingers into his hair. It means lying together afterwards, not touching or speaking. Just breathing hard as if that’s the only way either of you remember how to stop the silence from ringing in your ears. Your heart is trying to find a way out of you. Your skin feels too young for this. After a while he gets up. You watch him pulling on his pants. The room fills with the smell of spray-on deodorant and the sound of him getting ready to go out. You know what this means. He might look at you like he’s about to kiss you; he might not look at you at all. But you know that in a minute, two if you’re lucky, he’ll walk out that door and close it behind him and he won’t be back, not while you’re still here. You pull the sheet up over your head. In the late afternoon light the world under the covers is a strange orange yellow. You stay there long after you hear the door shut, long after the sweat on your body has dried, listening to your own breathing and imagining there’s nothing outside of this cave you’ve made yourself. But eventually you have to come up for air and pick up your clothes from where he left them on the floor. Dressing alone has never felt so lonely. You wriggle out his window and head home before your mother starts to wonder where you are. The first time you did this you were two days away from being sixteen. You’d spent months wondering what his mouth would feel like on yours. You’d spent weeks 20

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walking the long way home so you’d get to spend fifteen minutes walking with him, listening to him laugh and watching his eyes come alive as he talked about the things that he liked. One afternoon he asked you if you wanted to come in for something to eat, and there was no way you could have said no. ‘My parents don’t get home until half five,’ he said as he shut his bedroom door. Fear was hot and sweaty in your hands as he sat down beside you on the bed and turned your face to his. No-one had ever kissed you the way he did, with his mouth wide open and his tongue pushing against your lips. You thought about stopping him when his hands moved down to undo your blouse, but you knew if you did he wouldn’t ask you in again. So you let him push you back onto the bed and you tried not to tremble as he found his way inside you. Afterwards you got up to pull your underwear back on with shaking hands. You didn’t cry when you looked back at the bed and saw the blood on the sheets. You don’t know how to tell him you’ve never seen anything lovelier than the way his face looks in the late-afternoon sun, his skin and hair outlined by that rich orange light. You’re not brave enough to tell him that at night when you’re trying to fall asleep you imagine he’s lying next to you with his arm around you, breathing steadily into your hair. Six weeks. You could just be late. Between every class you go to the bathroom hoping your period has come but it hasn’t. After school you buy four tests with shaking hands. You do one in the bathroom at the supermarket and when the two lines come up you try not to let your lunch come up as well. You do another. And another. And another. Two lines on all of them. You sit down on the floor of the bathroom and stare at them for a very long time. ‘Are you alright, pet?’ asks the woman who’s been waiting to use the bathroom when you finally come out. You wipe at your eyes with your sleeve. You don’t tell him for weeks. When you finally find the words one afternoon lying naked in his bed, you say them to the wall with your back to him. The silence stretches out long and thin until you wonder if it will break into pieces that

History and Media, with a minor in Creative Writing.

will come showering down on both of you. Then he says, ‘Okay.’ You turn to face him. ‘Okay?’ ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ You pull your knees up to your chest. ‘I don’t know.’ Another long silence, which you close your eyes against. You hear him get up and start to dress. ‘I think you should go,’ he says. You keep walking past his house on your way home from school. You don’t pause at the letterbox, you don’t look up as you walk by. It could be just another house, except for the way your footfalls slow and your shoulders tense like you’re expecting something, like you’re expecting someone to call out to you. Meanwhile the skin on your stomach begins to strain, little by little, and you start wearing looser fitting clothes. Your mother hasn’t noticed yet. When you press your palm against the small bulge above your pants, your throat gets tight and you smile a little, and you don’t know how you’ll explain this to her. One afternoon you’re just past his place when you hear your name called. You turn around and he’s there. He’s wearing his soccer gear, his bag hanging off his shoulder. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Hey.’ He walks towards you until he’s close enough to touch. You look down at the footpath, at his shoes and yours, with less than a footstep between them. ‘How are you?’ he says. You shrug. ‘Okay, I guess.’ Then there’s the wind in your ears, the cars going past, schoolkids shouting and scuffing their way down the street. ‘What are you going to do?’ he says. ‘I’m keeping it.’ He puts his hands on either side of your face and kisses you. He’s never kissed you in public before. You put your hands on his chest and push him away. ‘Don’t.’ ‘But –’ He starts to reach for you again but you jerk away. ‘Fuck off.’ You pull the hood of your jersey up around your face and you turn and go home. On your walks home you see mothers pushing prams. You see children on slides and see-saws. They squeal and laugh, they have small fat hands. You’ve started to go

into stores on your way through town. You look at tiny little hats and t-shirts and onesies. You pick up pairs of blue booties and stroke the wool with your thumb. One night you wake up and it’s warm and wet between your legs. You pull back the covers and there’s blood. You breathe hard for a few minutes and then you tear at the sheets and your pyjamas and your fingernails rip into the fabric and you don’t hear the noises coming out of your mouth until your mother comes in your room and sees everything. The next morning you sit with your back against your bedroom door. You don’t want to look at your bare mattress with the dark stain in the middle, or at your sheets crumpled against the wardrobe like they’ve given up. But there they are. You pick up the fitted sheet from the pile, unfolding it until you can see the red amidst the white. It’ll come out no trouble, your mother would say. All it needs is a good soak. You pull on a jersey and tie your hair back and go downstairs. In the lounge, your mother is folding washing. She has her back to you. Each sheet snaps and blooms as she shakes the wrinkles out before folding it into a neat square. As you open the front door, she says, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Out,’ you say. ‘Just out.’ Her shoulders tighten. ‘What were you thinking,’ she says. She’s pulled another sheet from the pile but hasn’t started folding it. The ends droop around her ankles. You step outside and close the door. The harbour is nice today. The sky is washed out, the blue finding its way through the gaps in the clouds. You press a hand against your stomach and wonder what it would feel like to be hollowed out completely. You feel as if you already are. You sit down at the edge of the wharf and peel off your shoes and socks and drop them into the water. The heat is safety on your toes. How easy it would be, you think, to just slip off the edge and into the water and let it wash you out. Then maybe someone could come along and scoop you out and shake you into the wind and hang you up to dry, like a sheet in the sun.

S A L I E N T

Nicola is a History student who spends her days battling with terminal Anglophilia and mismatching adjectives in the vain hope of becoming literary.

Blank verse

I’VE NEVER BEEN

wish I was a little older, because “in the heat of twentythirteen” does not quite roll off the tongue the same way “in the summer of 89”, but instead I am young. And foolish. And not able to open my god-awful poetry with a pretty phrase. So instead I will start with IN THE SUMMER OF MY 17TH YEAR. Yes, that makes a good hook, something to falsify the preconceived idea of me in the minds of the few who read the deepest parts of me. Poetry is just dishonesty shrouded in the beautiful cape of well structured prose and copious amounts of unnecessary adjectives. Poetry, I have discovered, is the poor man’s heroine. I like to inject the filth of the word into my blood so they will not have to, as if turning pain into prose and suffering into syntax, I can make sense of everything I cannot fix. But the summer of my 17th year was the year I paused in my discomfort of feeling the weight of resentment creaking in my bones to write about the boy made of sunshine. In the summer of my 17th year I fell in love with a boy who disliked the summer, and preferred rain over sunshine, but still remained warm. And kind. And beautiful. His eyes burned if you looked at them for too long, a temporary blindness to the bitterness of the rest of the world sweeping over you if you weren’t careful. He gave life even when he failed to understand his own warmth, as if the sun had forgotten it was the sun for just a breath. He met people in their darkest places and he was light. Uncomplicated, unconditional, light. And though sometimes he himself needed to disappear every now and then, to hide behind his own discomforts, he was always there. Somewhere behind

S A L I E N T

Rhyming verse

ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND AN ENDING. MAYBE BECAUSE IT’S NOT OVER YET. the tangled nostalgia for the past, and somehow the future, and everything it had every capacity to hold, lay the boy who would come back when you needed some more sunshine. Who would love, and call you nick names when you were sad, and would make you whole by the pieces of himself. Poetry, I have also discovered, has a habit of romanticising the people you love on your behalf. For even the sun itself is burning up. I wish I was a little stupider, so that, for one, I could be satisfied with stupider for a choice of word, but second, so I could be at a loss for words to describe someone. Preferring to write someone into an extended metaphor instead of telling them how wonderful you think they are certainly has its downfalls. I am worth so little to him, so helpless towards all of his suffering, and his bitterness towards his past and himself and his self-created expectations. I wish I was a little younger, so I could think that the boy made of sunshine was magic when I realised he painted with silver and it came out red. Remember that you can spend money on bus tickets to get from point A to Point B. You can travel and make new friends. You can find an escape from all the cacophony and noise. But please do not forget that there is a place inside of you at all times that you can go to for free. This place is full of love and curiosity and understanding. This place is where you visit when your friend tells you they don’t want to wake up tomorrow and you selflessly drop all of your plans to

explain to them their value in this world. This is the place where you need to run and go crashing to. Forget the part of you that says there is no love in your heart but only self-loathing. Forget the part of you that says there is nothing to love. It is wrong. Go to this place inside of you when love is deficient. Go there when you are anxious or worried. Go to this place when someone calls for you to love or listen or care. Go to this place when you are alone or even in a busy street or surrounded by people you love. Go to place when you are happy and content with life. Visit this place so many times that this place becomes a home. Forget what you “know”. You are not defined by your mistakes. You are not your body. You are not your past. You are not your future. The essence of your being is love. Your spirit is always waiting for you to remember that. So go to that place in the center of you. Let the deep love swallow you whole. Everything is always okay, even when it’s not. Let go of the brain’s need to remind you of everything that weighs you down. You are love. Now breathe.

Em Chrys is a first-year double-majoring in English Lit and Modern Language Studies with French.

E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

Tom is a fourth-year student of English at VUW, who enjoys taking advantage of the class-free time which he really should be using to address a rapidly piling Honours workload in order to write stories like the perverse and macabre tale you will encounter below. (He is not known by Salient to be a sociopath?)

CO NV ICT IO N by T h o m as Wa lt e r

s murders go, and murders are known for their inherently nasty quality, it was a grisly one. The victim, a pale, marginally beautiful 22-year-old, had been “coldly dismembered with an axe”, the front page of The Dominion Post declared. This was a bit of an exaggeration, or at least misleading. Caroline Edgerowe had indeed been hacked to death by an axe, but her killing was without question a crime of passion. The chief pathologist concluded that the first blow, which had almost severed her forearm, had been intended to split her head open. In fact the following seven blows, which had driven horrid wedges into her collarbone, neck and chest, were all believed to have been aimed at her head. The eighth blow, which finally met its mark, had probably not killed her, not at least until the ninth blow which so widened the gash which it had first created in the middle of her forehead, that the killer appeared to have had to place his foot on her shoulder to wrench it out. He (the police and the pathologist concurred on this pronoun) had attacked her without premeditation and without mercy, or so it appeared. It was a matter of hours before the body was discovered by her mother, who had returned from a hard day at work, before the police turned the investigation on Caroline’s boyfriend, with whom she had broken up a month earlier. From the start, John Evans didn’t have much going for him. The 28-year-old was a construction worker, and had previously been a fast-food employee, bricklayer, landscape gardener’s assistant, and various other menial things, having left school at the age of 16. When the police interviewed Caroline’s mother, she told them frankly that she had never thought much of John. In her eyes, he had been a controlling and selfish presence in Caroline’s life, and it was self-evident that he was going nowhere. And although Caroline had never told her in so many words herself, Caroline’s mother had always suspected a degree of physical abuse, at least ever since that night that Caroline had come home, red-eyed evidently from crying, and when she had reached up to grab a mug from one of the kitchen cupboards, her mother had glimpsed to her horror a huge yellow and blue bruise covering the skin above her left hip. To this day, Caroline’s mother regretted not having said anything, but she had been so relieved when Caroline had broken-up with John the next day, over the phone. She had thought that the matter was at an end. When the police questioned John and searched his house, the case against him grew exponentially. Tuesday,

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the day of the murder, was his day off, he claimed to have spent the day at home reading, but as his flatmates were all out at work, there was no one to corroborate his story. Upon questioning, one of John’s neighbours became increasingly certain that they had seen John’s car leave the driveway and return about an hour and a half later. But it was a discovery to follow which turned the case against John from a vague suspicion into a deep conviction. The detectives at John’s house walked around back to examine his garden. They found just five items of clothing hanging on the washing line, a single outfit. The T-shirt was white, and visibly stained darker in places. Testing confirmed that the stains came from a blood type which matched Caroline’s. Of course, John was placed under immediate arrest and brought down to Wellington Central police station. The TV news depicted him emerging from an unmarked Holden, handcuffed with an officer in a stab-proof vest secured to each of his arms. It was puzzling that they hadn’t thought to throw something over his head to cover his face. Perhaps they hadn’t thought it was necessary; what hope was there in finding an unbiased jury in a case like this, and besides, that was the court’s job not the police’s. Perhaps John had refused to cover himself, thinking it would only make him appear guiltier. The tapes of the interviews were frankly harrowing, even if they were only viewed in short excerpts. John had emerged from the police car in tears, but by the time his interrogation was underway, the corners of his eyes were dried red. He responded to the questions of the lead detectives in a minimalistic fashion, encouraging them to use the sort of provocative methods which were normally reserved for detective fiction. The impression one formed of John in the tapes was one of an intelligent man, despite his low level of education and menial employment. Throughout most of the interview excerpts, John’s lawyer sat eerily silent beside him: “Where were you between the hours of 12 pm and 2 pm on the day of Caroline’s murder?” “At home.” “Do you know of anybody that can confirm this?” “No. You could try my neighbour. She’s always looking in on what I’m up to.” The shorter detective, with a shaven head, smiled, and leaned back in his chair. “It’s funny you should mention Mrs Ward. Because she told us that she saw your car leave your driveway at 12.30 pm, and return again at about 2 pm. Ring any bells?” “No. It’s not true.” The other taller detective, with cropped blonde hair, weighed in. “You realise that we are in the process of examining the onboard computer on your car, Mr Evans. It’s not going to do you any good if you keep lying to us now and we find that out in a couple of hours now is it?”

“I drive a 1976 Ford Bronco. It doesn’t have an onboard computer.” The taller detective frowned. The shorter detective took the wheel again. “You know, it was brutal what you did to Caroline. She would have died in agony.” “I didn’t do that to Caroline. I couldn’t.” John’s voice had changed. The taller detective placed a photo of Caroline’s body in front of John. “Couldn’t do this? Then how are we to explain the fact that there was a T-shirt hanging up in your backyard, soaked in traces of blood which matches Caroline’s?” John looked straight ahead and said nothing. “It’s a horrible thing you’ve done John, we think you know that,” the shorter detective said. “But if you come clean now, this whole thing is going to go a lot more smoothly for you. And you’d make things a lot easier for Caroline’s mother. The poor lady is distraught. Imagine finding your own daughter in that state.” The shorter detective prodded the photograph emphatically. John said nothing. “What made you do something like that?” the taller detective asked. “I mean you murdered a beautiful young woman, whom you probably loved.” “Was it because you couldn’t have her anymore? That must’ve hurt, if you loved her. Believe me buddy, I’ve been there before. But I didn’t take an axe to my ex. I think I know why you did though. It wasn’t just because you couldn’t have her. It was because you couldn’t have anyone else like her. Am I getting warm? She was getting an education, while you were on minimum wage and getting nowhere. She was beautiful, whereas you aren’t exactly Leonardo DiCaprio. What did she see in you? You still don’t know do you. All you know is that she was your last chance, your very last. So when she broke it off, there was nothing to lose. Am I getting warmer?” John glared at the detective. His green eyes shone, and in the semi-profile of the video recording, his features were outlined in bright light, strained so that he appeared in fact to be a devastatingly handsome man. But perhaps it was just the force of his expression. “What the fuck was all that bullshit? You’re talking about my life not Criminal Minds. I loved Caroline, but I would have got over her breaking it off with me. What I’ll never get over is how she died. And for your information, I remember now why her blood is on my T-shirt. We were lying in bed once, her head on my chest, and she had a sudden nosebleed. She used to get them sometimes on hot days. Have a look at the T-shirt. It’ll all be in one place, not splattered around.” “We can’t tell anymore where the blood landed, because you did much too good a job of washing it,” the taller detective said. “So if you didn’t do it, who do you think did?” “How should I know?” John replied, wearily. “That’s your job to find out isn’t it? I’m not supposed to be guilty until I find the real culprit for you, am I?” The Crown Prosecutor picked up a small black remote, and the image on the TV screen vanished. There was a drawn-out silence in the courtroom. It was unusual to present such a piece of evidence in a closing argument, but the Prosecutor, a bright-blue-eyed man with an otherwise unassuming appearance and a remarkable ability to shift from a quiet drone to furious shouting, seemed to think it clearly illustrated the guilt of the accused. “In summing up my case against Mr Evans I have chosen to end with this piece of evidence, because I think it says something which no words can. Already, I believe, we have demonstrated to you that the circumstantial and physical evidence points to Mr Evans beyond reasonable doubt. His elderly neighbour has signed a written statement revealing that she witnessed Mr Evans departing his house in his car within the time window during which the murder is estimated by the coroner to have taken place. He returned S A L I E N T

soon after, and put a wash on, including a T-shirt with the blood of Caroline Edgerowe smeared on it! [At this point his voice rose suddenly, and his face flushed red.] The axe which killed Caroline Edgerowe had clearly discernible fingerprints belonging to Mr Evans, on its handle, the only discernible fingerprints, and the jury needs to ask itself whether it is truly plausible, as the defence have had the audacity to suggest, that Mr Evans was simply the last person to handle the axe over a month prior to the murder, chopping wood in the height of summer! (Here his eyes widened, the ghost of an incredulous smile on his lips, and he stared into mine for a moment before turning and continuing to pace up and down.) These, as you all know, are only several salient pieces of evidence among dozens of others, which I will not unnecessarily enumerate again. I believe that, on a purely rational basis, the evidence speaks completely for itself. I ask that you consider your verdict based on them. But [and here he picked up the remote with a flourish, turned on the tape, and began to rewind it], I am aware that I am not standing before 12 purely rational beings. And it is for this reason that I also appeal to the human intuition within each of you (he paused the tape with barely a glance at the screen, a virtuoso performance). This (he pointed to John’s face, in profile, tautened, bright and handsome, full of self-righteous anger), is the face of a young man who has killed for love.” The Crown Prosecutor stood in silence and left the image sitting on the screen for ten seconds or so before abruptly turning his back on the jury stand, shutting off the TV set, and returning to his seat. This is the thing which I told myself at the time and I tell myself now: there is a difference, even if it is only one of degrees, between being a regular member of a jury and being the foreman. While as a jury member, in a wooden-panelled back room bereft of witnesses, with plush swivel chairs and an unending supply of sandwiches, coffee, cake and biscuits,

Leila

one can say, perhaps without any great sense of responsibility, well he’s obviously guilty as sin but is there the evidence for it? (As one of my peers, a middle-aged woman with cake crumbs spilling from her lips, did in fact say,) the words of the foreman in the courtroom carry altogether more weight. To stand up in a silent room, freshly hushed by the judge, a slip of paper in your hand, and out of the corner of your eye a man watching you, his pupils fastened to every fractional movement of your lips, to state neutrally in either one word or two: you are free to go, or, if you ever hold an axe again you will probably be too frail to swing it; this was in my mind a different thing altogether. Whoever claimed that actions speak louder than words had never been a foreman, because if that were true it would have been clear to me what I had to say. I am overdramatising that moment; of course what I said out in the courtroom had to be determined by consent (or dissent) in the conference room over cakes and tea. But that moment where John Evans and I would stand together in the courtroom was never absent from my mind throughout the dozens of hair-splitting debates over each piece of evidence, and the thousands of slurps of coffee. So I suppose that it was, in its real or imagined sense, pivotal. It was actually only a few weeks after the trial that I saw him in the supermarket, browsing tins of canned soup and looking surprisingly buoyant and well for a man who had been through the kind of ordeal that he had. I knew that the obvious ‘right’ thing to do was to ignore him and proceed to the check-out. But I couldn’t help myself. His eyes widened for a moment when he turned in response to my greeting, but he more or less immediately smiled and shook my hand warmly (I had expected this after the way he had looked at me in the courtroom after I spoke, which I can only describe as adoring.) “How are you doing then?” I asked. “Very well, all things considered,” he answered. “Thanks to

you.” He looked almost bashful. “I’m feeling a lot better as well now,” I said, realising that I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Now I’m out of that bloody courtroom.” He winced slightly before I realised how insensitive a thing this was to say. “Well I’ve got to get going,” John said. “My turn to cook for the flatmates tonight.” I could only surmise that this was a blatant lie; his shopping basket was filled with soup cans and microwave meals for one. As he turned to walk away impulse overcame me and I grabbed his wrist. He twisted back round to face me with his smile gone. “I need to know if you did it,” I murmured, even though the aisle was empty. “I haven’t been sleeping. You’ve been acquitted, they can’t touch you now, your lawyer must have told you that. All I need is the truth. Please.” He jerked his wrist free from my grasp. His strength shocked me. His face had tightened into the same look I had seen on the videotape, startlingly handsome. “I’m the only one who knows that,” he said.

Josephine by Nina Powles

The second violin dropped his instrument when the last song finished on a long note that went melting all over the ballroom. Leila thought she heard a string break before being rushed outside in a wash of girls’ dresses painted golden cream in the glow of the window. A pearl button from her sleeve snapped off its thread. She knelt, feeling for it in the dark, when Laura’s fingers clutched at hers. They were off home. The other girls’ cheeks weren’t so fearfully pink as hers. They laughed and laughed, clasping invisible hairpins like roses. Leila looked out the carriage window at the moon, flickering on and off behind macrocarpa trees, too marvellously bright to look at straight on. But not as bright as the hot white glow bursting somewhere inside her chest, sending currents of lightning to her lilac gloved fingertips and her toes enfolded in satin. “Nearly home!” cried Laura, yawning into her cupped hand, and Leila almost forgot that a silly thing like a yawn could possibly exist — not just here, where

Nina Powles studies English and Chinese, is Books Editor for Salient, and has a poetry chapbook forthcoming from Seraph Press later this year.

the wind rushes the ivory folds of her dress in enormous circles — not just now, when she gets goosebumps just remembering she is only at the beginning of everything.

S A L I E N T

E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

Music

Shabazz Palaces – Lese Majesty Album review review by by Liam Liam Kennedy Kennedy Album

“T

o be us it takes leaps of faith,” so says Ishmael Butler, on Shabazz Palaces’ new album Lese Majesty. I’d agree. It takes a leap of faith to release a hip-hop album this progressive when so many seem content to rest in the commercial shallows or regress into ‘90s nostalgia. It takes a leap of faith to rap about pharaohs, stars and love when your fellow MCs are ranting about ‘ralph-level’ fashion. Fortunately for us, these are the kind of leaps Ishmael Butler specialises in. Butler isn’t a newcomer: he was one third of the sublime Jazz-Rap group Digable Planets. The trio released two excellent albums, in 1993 and ‘94, before breaking up in ‘95 to the dismay of hip-hop lovers past and present. But, being the leaper he is, Butler returned. In 2009, Ish teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Tendai Maraire to form Shabazz Palaces. The pair released two captivating EPs in 2009 before their masterful debut Black Up dropped 2011, showcasing a new strand of astral, futuristic hip-hop, infused with African instrumentation and digital wizardry. Now, in 2014, we have Lese Majesty. The album is 18 tracks in all but only seven are more than three minutes. The typical hiphop format of 16 bars followed by a hook is

replaced by a more free form, unpredictable combination of verse and vocals. Butler’s flow is as slick as ever as he alternates between boasts, love lines, proverbs and strange visions like this from ‘Forerunner Foray’: “Black Stallions pull my Chariot/ My heart’s Broken/ Time travel fast and far/ To the last oceans.” Maraire works wonders on the beats. Stand-up bass is looped under handclaps, synths and autotune on the track ‘Ishmael’, while ‘They Come in Gold’ features the mid-track changeup to end all mid-track change-ups. Lese Majesty’s best tracks are its longest; the middle section of the album suffers from a pinch too many one-minute sketches, but even these brim with an adventurous spirit. Shabazz Palaces have delivered a sophomore album worth your attention. Here’s hoping they continue taking leaps of faith for years to come.

Releases We Should Have Reviewed This Week

La Roux – Trouble In Paradise

Album review review by by Henry Henry Cooke Cooke Album

t’s been half a decade since La Roux’s spiky self-titled debut, and ‘Bulletproof’ is still stuck in my head, that Skream remix of ‘In For The Kill’ is still scoring film trailers, and ‘I’m Not Your Toy’ is still the banger it was when I couldn’t buy alcohol. Yes, the sign that I’m talking about their first album this much does not bode well – five years is an era in pop music. La Roux, once a duo, is now just singer Elly Jackson, although once-partner Ben Langmaid is still credited on several of the songs. Given Jackson’s roar of a vocal range, this didn’t seem like the hugest issue in the world at first, but his absence is palpable. This is, ugh, this is a ‘groovy’ record, much like Daft Punk’s latest, full of jangles and cute little piano lines. Yes, saccharine synth-pop is a little played out, but the La Roux of 2009 was menacing; this is, well, pleasant. There are hooks, and they are catchy. Jackson is an excellent singer, and while her lyrics feel a little lacking at points, it’s hard to tire of someone this good. Opener ‘Uptown, Downtown’ shows her singing off, then ‘Kiss and Not Tell’ reminds you how fun pop can be. After a few ballady songs comes ‘Sexotheque’, which feels a lot longer than 4:19. ‘Tropical Chancer’ is a standout, although “I met him through a dancer/ Didn’t know he was a tropical chancer” sounds like something you make up when desperately trying to rhyme in a drinking game. Seven-minute ‘Silent Partner’ seems directly pointed at her ex-bandmate, and is really quite good, then closer ‘Let Me Down Gently’ does exactly that. This never feels like a bad album, not at all, just one you forget you are listening to. 5 Seconds of Summer –5 Seconds of Summer. You know that song with the

American Apparel underwear that sounds like Yellowcard? The dude from Yellowcard wrote them some other songs! But like 17 of them, way too much work. Morrissey –World Peace is None Of Your Business Just kidding, no.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow –Sea When Absent. A noisy delight, but came out at an

inconvenient time. Print media is weird! Radiator Hospital – Torch Light. It technically isn’t released for months so we’re giving ourselves more time to love it. The Puppies Vinyl. Because Salient hasn’t written about Blink enough yet.

Visual Art

Tomb or or Battlefield Battlefield Tomb by Simon Simon Gennard Gennard by

n April, the Delaware Art Museum announced plans to sell three of its collection pieces to cover a sizable deficit. Earlier this month, Northampton Museum announced the sale of an Egyptian statue in order to pay for a £13 million redevelopment. It happens all the time. Though it shouldn’t. There’s a widely held assumption that once an item enters a museum’s collection, it exits the exchange economy and enters the public archive. There are guidelines in place to ensure works stay put. The Association of Art Museum Directors in the US issued sanctions against the Delaware Art Museum, urging all members to suspend loans and collaborations. The British Museums Association have threatened to suspend Northampton Museum’s accreditation. The museum is a tomb. Implicit in the assumption that the museum acts as a final resting place for objects is the assumption that the museum operates outside of a capitalist economy. That the museum acts only to document unrest, that it is never the site of it. Suppose the modern museum is in a state of crisis. It isn’t difficult. The Detroit Institute of Art narrowly avoided having to 24

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liquidate its entire collection thanks to an $800 million endowment for the bankrupt city contingent on the collection staying in place. Closer to home, Te Papa just revealed an $8 million deficit. Devon Smith recently suggested in an article on Medium titled ‘We Should Allow Failing Arts Organisation to Die’ that allowing institutions that refuse to adapt to change to remain on life support is detrimental to the entire culture landscape. Smith’s argument relies on the application of social Darwinism: “The healthy can’t stay that way surrounded by a crowd of the sick.” Smith attributes the growing sense of crisis among arts organisations as a symptom of changing tastes. She argues that patrons are more interested in “nontraditional” experiences, among which she lists: “appreciating the aesthetic design of an especially beautiful video game, the art of pulling a great shot of espresso, and the craft of a great pair of raw denim jeans.” What these experiences have in common is the necessity of currency. Smith seems to argue that the allocation of funding should be made by the individual, rather than the state. It seems utopian, naïve even, to argue that the museum is a public space not dependent on the purchasing of goods or services. It costs $25 to get into MoMA. Te

Papa’s touring exhibitions cost up to $20. Not to mention the kind of acquisition of cultural capital certain institutions demand. But what is most significant about Smith’s argument is its transference of neoliberal absolute faith in the market to decide who sinks. Smith writes generally. She considers only the institution’s ability to deliver content. Allowing floundering museums to fail would risk scattering collections across a range of private buyers. And, of course, the flooding of the market would affect the return. The first piece from the Delaware collection, William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil, was sold to an unidentified buyer, for $4.9 million, well below its estimate of between $8.4 and $13.4 million. The state shrinks. Arts institutions turn to the private sector for funding. Sponsorship provides companies with a way of shaping their brand. Associating with the right kind of people. Transfield, for instance, has for two decades been the principal sponsor of the Sydney Biennale. Transfield Services holds the government contract to operate Australia’s refugee detention centres. The museum must be ethically compromised. Public funds are always precarious. Adapting means either accepting funds from questionable sources, or committing sacrilege by selling items to stay afloat. These strands converge in Hito Steyerl’s stunning lecture Is the Museum a Battlefield?. Using the 1917 Bolshevik storming of the

Winter Palace and the 1792 storming of the Louvre as points of departure, Steyer examines the death of her childhood friend Andrea Wolf – a member of the Kurdish Women’s Army who was killed in Turkey in 1998. Her investigation leads her to the battlesite to examine the detritus. She traces a bullet shell backwards, to its manufacturer, and it is here, in the lobby of General Dynamics, that she discovers something. “Imagine my surprise when I found my own artwork being installed there,” she said. “This artwork was actually showing the battlefield, which... I was following the bullet back from the place it came from, and I ended up in a sort of weird feedback loop, as if the bullet wasn’t flying straight, from one point to another, but actually it was flying in a circle.” The image of the circulating bullet sustains Steyerl’s lecture. Until it stops. She concludes by calling for an acknowledgement of the museum as a site of conflict, stating that the only way to break free of the feedback loop she describes is to “storm the museum again”. Hito Steyerl’s Is the Museum a Battlefield? is on display at Adam Art Gallery until 10 August.

S A L I E N T

expect when they’re trying to get published? It’s easy to forget that writing

Interview with Sebastian Hampson by Nina Nina Powles Powles by

ebastian Hampson is an English

and Art History student at Vic, and he’s also a published novelist. Last year, his debut novel The Train to Paris was picked up by Australian independent publishers Text Publishing. The book was launched during Writers Week at the New Zealand Festival earlier this year, making him one of the youngest authors to take part in the festival. For our arts and literature issue, I talked to Sebastian about what it’s like to have been published so early in his career. When did you start writing? What made you start? I’ve always been telling

stories in some form, and I decided when I was about ten to start turning them into novels. And like a lot of writers, I started out doing it for myself, trying to come up with the sorts of stories nobody else had. I’m really glad I started that early because it means you can get the awkward first attempts out of the way more quickly!

How did living in Wellington and studying at Victoria influence your becoming a writer? Wellington has such

a lively artistic community that it’s always been a great environment to be part of, and the same goes for Victoria. It’s very rare in any city to find like-minded people, but I’ve always been able to here. When I was invited to speak at Writers Week during the New Zealand Festival this year, I was amazed at how many Wellingtonians were involved and participating in the events. There’s a real buzz to it. What’s it like to have been picked up by a publisher so early in your career? Obviously I feel very fortunate.

You hear all these stories about writers struggling for years and years to get anything so much as in front of a publisher, something I had prepared myself for. So I think it’s good to know that you can do it if you put the hard work in. What can young aspiring writers

a first draft of something barely counts as the first step – in my case, I wrote the first draft of The Train to Paris over six weeks in the middle of the trimester, possibly at the expense of a few assignments! But I rewrote it and rewrote it several times over the next year before I even thought about submitting it, and that’s where I ended up doing most of the work. I think you have to be patient but also persistent, and that pays off in the long run. How important is it to you that there’s a strong writing community for you to be a part of in Wellington, or in NZ as a whole? Or do you see yourself as a bit of an outsider?

I am very lucky to live in such a creative environment, but I’ve always done my own thing and so it’ll inevitably be a bit different from what other New Zealand writers are doing. That’s why I chose to write a book set in France and why I submitted it to Text Publishing, by far and away the best independent publisher in Australia – my perspective has always been international. Do you have any writing projects planned for the future? I keep a lot of

projects going simultaneously and always write new material because I just can’t stop myself. Whatever I come up with next, it will be very different from The Train to Paris. Are there any new young novelists

Books

who you’re really enjoying at the moment?

Ben Atkins is a great new talent who happens to be about the same age as me, and I’ve been enjoying his first novel, Drowning City.

You Should Should Submit Submit to to You These Journals Journals These Rejectamenta – July 30

Newly formed by Wellington-based Cats and Spaghetti Press, Rejectamenta accepts poetry and prose that has been rejected from other publications. Include a rejection letter with your submission. http://catsandspaghettipress.tumblr.com/ Minarets – always open

Minarets considers poetry of any style and subject, as well as occasional reviews or essays. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. http://compoundpress.org/About-Contact Annexe – always open

A new sister-journal to Minarets, Annexe is the place for large, chunky poems that rarely find homes elsewhere. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. http://compoundpress.org/About-Contact Turbine – October 20

Run by the IIML at Victoria University, Turbine is an online journal that accepts new poetry and prose. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/modernletters/ resources/turbine/submission-guidelines

Congrats! Congrats!

Victoria University Press authors Marty Smith and Amy Head recently won the Best First Book prizes for fiction and poetry. Salient reviewed Horse With Hat by Marty Smith in May. Film

At Berkeley Review

highly recommend avoiding this film at the end of a long day. The four-hourlong documentary which contemplates the current economic struggles facing the University of California, Berkeley, is only truly appreciated if mentally prepared. With a chronic ability to head-drop in awkward situations, my falling asleep in the first attempt to watch it doesn’t say much. It took me two tries to get through Pulp Fiction (the poster of a lounging cigarette-laden Uma Thurman on the back of my bedroom door is expert false advertising – still haven’t seen the final scene). So taking a second shot the next day, with a clear caffeinated head, helped to realise that this is a very atypical yet valuable documentary for which the critical acclaim seems rightly deserved. Berkeley is infamous for its high calibre of teaching and consistent ranking as one of the world’s most prestigious universities. It prides itself on excellence and diversity. The bankrupt state of California, however, threatens the public institution’s ability to continue providing education on par with private universities minus the pricey exclusivity and pretentious ego-boosting. At Berkeley captures an academic insight into this world of academia. It includes no narrative or interviews. It lingers and hovers S A L I E N T

Note: you can read a full version of this interview at www. salient.org.nz/film

in various classrooms, on the student parties and protests and in the board meetings. It isn’t the story of people who go to Berkeley but how they push the institution along, uphold its core righteous values and (naïvely) embody the true, forgotten American Dream. The intensity of the classes makes Socratic method seem simply lethargic (and the associated stress positively embarrassing). The length, in truth, was unnecessary. There were many long-winded scenes which dropped from being captivating to difficult. Instead of bite-sized insights and lessons, the forced learning meant a frequent sink into boredom when realising you had accurately got the point three minutes earlier. It’s hefty. That’s a strong warning. If, however, you righteously consider yourself a university student with an academic consciousness superior to most, coupled with a proactive desire for a healthy education, then trust that this will educate you sufficiently. At Berkeley is playing at the NZIFF in Wellington on 26 July, 1.15 pm (Paramount Bergman), 30 July, 2 pm (Paramount), 3 August, 1.30 pm (Paramount Bergman), and 7 August, 1.45 pm (Paramount Bergman).

Interview with

Doug Doug Dillaman Dillaman Doug Dillaman is the writer and director of local feature film Jake about the trials and tribulations of self-funding and self-promoting an independent film in New Zealand. What is the inspiration behind Jake?

The idea for Jake came partially from Jake Gyllenhaal and me idly wondering if his career would be the same if he was named Jacob, and partially from being in a bad mood and wondering if somebody else could take the raw materials of my life and make something better out of them. I realised they probably could, but who would play that part? An actor. And it just grew from there. How did you manage to self-fund the film? Through countless favours. There

was a cash component, of course – which meant working hard, saving money, living off soup, using some credit cards, and all those normal things – but for every dollar I spent we’d have ten times as many in various forms of goodwill. All the actors and crew worked for no money up front, and gave us passion money couldn’t buy. Concierge NZ fed us – and fed us well – every day. Our DOP worked at Panavision and they gave us amazing access to their equipment. And so on.

What have been some of the biggest challenges in distributing a local film in New Zealand? The actual mechanics

of distributing a film are quite easy, really. It’s convincing people to show up and theatres to take the chance that’s the problem! So much of successful distribution is marketing. It was a huge learning curve for us as self-distributors, and my other producers Alastair Tye Samson and Anoushka Klaus have been doing the hard yards these last few months bringing it all together. The biggest rewards? Finally connecting

to an audience! For me, movies are all about the cinema experience, and I’m so grateful to anyone who goes and sees Jake in a theatre as it’s meant to be seen. We were told many times through the process that there wasn’t an audience for such an unconventional film, so it’s been fantastic to see that there is – I’ve sat through both Auckland and Wellington premieres, and to be with an audience laugh, flinch, and applaud has been a truly validating experience. Would you do it again? If the right

idea came along – either something that I could execute for a very small budget, or something bigger I could get money for – sure. For the moment, I’m writing a novel at the IIML, and that’s my big project for the near future. But both of my other producers have feature-film ideas in development they’re keen to write and/or direct, so I’m hoping I can play some role in bringing those to fruition.

by Charlotte Doyle E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

medium can transform into something that’s sometimes very emotionally charged. Which is one of those phrases people like to use.

Little Horribles By Michael Graham

ittle Horribles is a “darkly comedic web series following the poor decisions of a self-indulgent lesbian.” I’m not sure why they have to qualify a synopsis with the fact that the main character is a lesbian – perhaps that’s like critical information for some viewers. Anyway, the reason I include that quote above is to just say I completely disagree; this isn’t darkly comedic humour. It’s pretty fun, with some sardonic and cynical characters.

It’s Amy York Rubin, doing some chuckle-worthy deadpan American humour. From what I can tell, it may be a little similar to The Office (US), once that show got funny. I only watched a little of season one of The Office (US) because frankly I found it abysmal; however, from what I’m told, they started doing some more authentic, funny American humour somewhere into the second season. And Little Horribles probably fits into that dynamic somewhere.

Really, this show is just about those little, almost-important awkward moments that are just embarrassing. Stories focussing on how the mundanity of daily life is really quite funny when you watch someone else do it. And it’s good because sometimes you’re empathising with Amy (main character) and sometimes you’re empathising with the character she’s being weird towards.

It’s a bit tricky to review humour which is in its nature understated. I wrote out a couple of quotes from the show when I drafted this (yes, I do in fact edit these things before publication) and on the page they come across as pretty predictable and sterile. If this was an essay, we could get into some meta-territory(!) and talk about how the script format itself is by nature a pretty hostile environ, and how it’s interesting that such a stark

Sonya Sonya Says Says This will be the last column I ever write about the Student Forum. I promise. At University Council last month, the Council endorsed the motion that VUWSA be recognised as the primary representative body of students at Victoria, and work with other independent student representative groups to ensure the student voice is strong at Victoria. This is important because authentic, informed, independent student voice is really important to make this university great. From VUWSA’s network of over 1000 Class Reps, the classroom to the boardroom needs your voice. And even with good (or not) intentions, a university cannot provide that. A brief history of the Student Forum: October 2011 – March 2012: The ACT

Party’s ‘Freedom of Association’ (Voluntary Student Membership) bill passed into law, making association membership voluntary. Victoria argued that this change meant they could legally no longer engage with VUWSA as representatives of students. The University swiftly moved to set up a ‘Student Forum’ run by the University to consult and represent students. The famous ‘typo’ 26

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occurred, when the Forum was referred to as the “primary” representative body, and university management replied that it was a “typo” and that the Forum wasn’t meant to replace VUWSA. The typo was never corrected. July 2012: The first Student Forum

meetings were held. Confusion was expressed by members as to why they were there, when some students had just sent an email to staff to get on the Forum. It was agreed that a review of the Forum was urgently needed to check whether it had a student mandate. VUWSA President Bridie Hood sent an email to Vice-Chancellor Pat Walsh outlining VUWSA’s concerns. March 2013: VUWSA, Ngāi Tauira,

and the Pasifika Students’ Council simultaneously withdrew from the Student Forum, citing concerns about lack of independence, its processes of university staff appointing students, confusion between representation and consultation, and issues of cultural appropriateness and the Treaty. The Forum collapsed and a review group was formed, consisting of staff and student reps from VUWSA, Postgraduate Students’ Association, Ngāi Tauira, Can-Do and Pasifika Students’ Council. April–September 2013: A review was

carried out by the Student Working Party, chaired by University Council–elected student David Alsop. Over 1500 students participated in consultation. The review panel and consultation confirmed that students wanted their voice to come from independent organisations like VUWSA and student representative groups, not a University-run Student Forum. Legal advice also showed that the University could have

Some of the good stuff: the acting is likably off-the-cuff in that tidy yet unpolished way; actors come in an array of body shapes and colours which is really refreshing to see; editing is tight, but not to the point that it draws attention to itself. What I’m trying to say is that this is a show that a lot of people should be able to relate to, because we’ve most of us been in weird social situations where we’re compelled to just act a little strange. There’s a good episode called ‘Bathroom Mirror’ which demonstrates this point more lucidly than I can. There are also some issues of sexuality and friendship raised, but I really think this show is more concerned with those ideas as aspects or side effects of daily life. The focus is not on certain social ideology in and of itself. And in that way, I guess you could even classify this as a kind of web sitcom, though I’d have to think about that a little more. Even sitcoms like Modern Family which ostensibly break the fourth wall or whatever are still subject to the massive constraints of their genre… Not sure if this show could ever be bound by anything but its own rules. Getting a bit abstract. More content stuff: Episode one, ‘Sexual Activity’, features

Students’ Association representatives on its boards and committees, unlike earlier opinions provided in 2011. March–June 2014: University Council,

boards and committees revoked the Student Forum changes, returning VUWSA and students to the heart of the student voice at Victoria <3 Huge thanks must go to David Alsop, Stella Blake-Kelly, David Crabbe, Pam Thorburn and other staff on the review, and all of the students who participated in consultation. I also must acknowledge Rory McCourt, 2013 VUWSA President, who had the courage to speak up about the Student Forum, even when it was really really hard. We can move forward, together. RIP Student Forum. Sonya Clark | President

Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association | M: 027 563 6986 | DDI: (04) 463 6986 | E: sonya.clark@vuw.ac.nz | W: www.vuwsa.org.nz

Q&A for the Executive

Q. Why should I run in the VUWSA Election?]

A. VUWSA has existed since 1899, and 115 years later, we’re one of the strongest and most vibrant students’ associations in New Zealand. We’re run by students for students, and anyone studying at Vic can run for the VUWSA Exec. We strongly believe that students know what is best for students, and that we should have control over our affairs. No matter what you are passionate about,

some sexual activity (one of the jokes of the ep) and a kind of breakup, wherein the breaker-up requires consoling because she finds it so difficult to break up with people. That sounds like a pathetic example of comedy. However, these things, short stories, are to me at least almost always about execution, rather than content. In addition, if we think about the web series itself as a sort of hyper-real, extreme close-up of life, the snippets we’re presented with don’t have to be completely realistic or fresh. The series is concerned more with the method of presentation. To that end, we’re given what feels like unscripted dialogue, in which characters communicate with each other, rather than just deliver lines. This in turn contributes to the awkwardness. I like to think about rhythm and meter in particular when it comes to these moments – that might be a little over the top. If you’re an avid reader of my reviews (a man can dream), you’ll realise by now that unscripted organic acting is pretty much my jam when it comes to comedy. So possibly, I’m being really biased. Getting back to the point: obviously we’re not expected to believe Amy is a real person who has these experiences every day. So the breakup thing above is funny. It is. You guys: just watch this show, please. The episodes are like five minutes long. Watch it on your iPhone.

whether it’s improving the quality of education at Victoria, creating a campus culture, or supporting struggling students, the VUWSA Exec is a great place to spark change, develop new skills and meet some awesome people! The VUWSA Executive are elected every year by the student body, with candidates vying for one of the 10 positions. These positions are as follows: President, Academic Vice-President, Welfare VicePresident, Engagement Vice-President, Treasurer–Secretary, Education Officer, Equity Officer, Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer, Campaigns Officer, and Clubs and Activities Officer. The Executive works collaboratively on projects, so these positions are less prescriptive and more for the benefit of finding candidates with particular skill sets and interests. For example, a candidate for Campaigns Officer could be interested in democratic engagement, or someone running for Education Officer could have been a Class Representative or Faculty Delegate in the past. Ultimately, these roles are what you make of them, and as an elected representative you are accountable to the student body. Nomination forms can be picked up at the VUWSA Reception from Thursday 31 July with Job Descriptions of all the roles.

What’s On This Week Tuesday 29 July Clubs Showcase in the Hub Wednesday 30 July What Are You Voting For Expo @ The Hub, 11 am – 2 pm Thursday 31 July Nominations Open for the 2015 VUWSA Election Friday 1 August Free Bread at the VUWSA Reception S A L I E N T

What’s On

Notices Notices

Music:

Careers

Angelo King, Steezin Hawkings And Guests

(Organisations: Closing Date) Sport New Zealand: 28 Jul Asia New Zealand Foundation: 31 Jul Grant Thornton: 31 Jul InterContinental Hotels Group: 31 Jul The Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company : 1 Aug Compac Sorting Equipment: 8 Aug Unilever: 12 Aug Palantir Technologies: 13 Aug Wairoa District Council: 14 Aug Fonterra: 17 Aug

Valhalla, 1 August, 8 pm, $5 Junelle and Naow

Matterhorn, 3 August, 3 pm, free

Film: New Zealand Film Festival – 25 July –

10 August Programme can be found on www.nziff. co.nz/2014/wellington/ or in hard copy from select stores.

Visual Arts: Rex Butler: Juan Davila’s After-Images

Join leading Australian art writer Rex Butler for a talk about artist Juan Davila. City Gallery, 28 July, 6 pm, free entry Mary-Louise Browne & Megan Jenkinson: Double Vision

Bartley + co, until 9 August

Books: Literary Notes lecture series presented by Katherine Mansfield Birthplace and Old St Paul’s:

31 July – Dr Charles Ferrall on Mansfield’s Music and Musicians Old St Paul’s in Thorndon, 6 pm, goldcoin entry Writers on Mondays at Te Papa

28 July – poet and fiction writer Geoff Cochrane The Marae, Te Papa, 12.15–1.15 pm, free

Theatre: Young and Hungry Festival of New Theatre

Our Parents’ Children at 6.30 pm Second Afterlife at 8 pm Uncle Minotaur at 9.30 pm 18 July – 2 August at BATS Theatre Constellations

7.30 pm at Circa Theatre 26 July – 23 August A View from the Bridge

Written by Arthur Miller, directed by Susan Wilson 19 July − 23 August at Circa Theatre Tuesday and Wednesday 6.30 pm Thursday–Saturday 8 pm Sunday 4 pm

Applications closing soon:

Upcoming Free Careers Events for all students

The Disney International Programmes: 30 Jul Careers in Accounting: 31 Jul Science Careers Expo: 7 Aug EY Presentation: 11 Aug Careers in Focus Seminar (Humanities & Social Sciences): 14 Aug Victoria Business School: Executive Careers Expo: 11 Sept 2015 JET Programme: 19 Sept Check details/book on CareerHub: www. victoria.ac.nz/careerhub

Storytellers Cafe

Guest Teller: Judy Frost-Evans When: Tuesday 5 August 2014 (1st Tuesday of every month) Time: 7.30 pm Venue: Toi Poneke Address: 61–69 Abel Smith St, Te Aro Entry: $5 Judy Frost-Evans has loved listening to stories as far back as she can remember, and in more recent years has founded a school of storytelling, ‘In the Belly of the Whale’, on the Kapiti Coast to nurture and support the development of storytelling in the community. She tells to various audiences, especially to elders in retirement homes, and also facilitates a monthly story circle in Paekakariki. The theme for August will be ‘Recollecting and Remembering the stories of our lives’. Host for the evening will be renowned Wellington storyteller Tony Hopkins.

Quaker Lecture

“Standing in this Place: How do Pākehā support justice for Māori?” 2014 Annual Quaker Lecture – Tuesday 12 August. St Andrew’s on The Terrace (in the Hall). Lecture 6 pm, refreshments from 5.30 pm Panel of Speakers – David James QSM, Jillian Wychel QSM, Linda Wilson, Murray Short. The Panel will explore the challenges faced in delivering educational courses on the Treaty, working on Treaty issues in the public service and in the delivery of public health services.

A Night of Piano and Vocals at Meow

7 August: 9 pm start Free Entry Self-taught pianist Nicole Andrews performs her original songs, with support by fellow pianist and electronic artist Lazuli (Petra Bullock). Nicole’s music has been compared to alternative songstresses like Tori Amos and PJ Harvey. Her raw, piano-driven S A L I E N T

Contributors style and delicate but cutting vocals bring new meaning to storm in a tea cup. www.facebook.com/nicoleandrewsmusic

Politics in Film

The Political Science and International Relations Programme is pleased to announce that it will be running a film series this term.The “Politics in Film” series is designed to provide students with some fun extracurricular learning experiences, raise awareness about POLS/INTP offerings, and start some conversations about important issues. The series will involve six events, all associated with a particular POLS/ INTP course. Each event will involve an introduction by a POLS/INTP lecturer, a viewing of a film, and then a panel discussion moderated by the lecturer. The panel discussion will highlight links between the film and POLS/INTP courses taught at Vic and will feature Vic students. The schedule is as follows: 31 July: China Blue (2005) with panel discussion moderated by Jason Young (POLS/INTP 203) 7 Aug: The East (2013) with panel discussion moderated by Greta Snyder (INTP 377) 21 Aug: Margin Call (2011) with panel discussion moderated by Ben ThirkellWhite (INTP 247) 11 Sept: 13 Days (2000) with panel discussion moderated by Joe Burton (INTP 248) 25 Sept: Examined Life (2008) with panel discussion moderated by Kate Schick (INTP 370) 9 Oct: Hotel Rwanda (2004) with panel discussion moderated by Jana von Stein (POLS/INTP 363) Each event starts at 5 pm and will be held in HMLT002. Admission is open to all, popcorn is free. We look forward to seeing you there!

Vic OE – Vic Student Exchange Programme

Missed the deadline for exchanges in Tri 1, 2015? Contact the Vic OE staff as you may be able to submit a late application. Why not study overseas as part of your degree?! Study in English, earn Vic credit, get StudyLink and grants, explore the world! Weekly seminars on Wednesdays, Level 2, Easterfield Building, 12.50 pm Website: http://victoria.ac.nz/exchange Visit us: Level 2, Easterfield Building Drop-in hours: Mon–Wed 1–3 pm, Thurs & Fri 10 am – 12 pm

TOASTMASTERS

Pipitea students – communicate with confidence! Toastmasters helps you improve your communication and leadership skills in a supportive learn-bydoing environment. Now Toastmasters is at Pipitea Campus for the first time. Develop your skills along with fellow Pipitea students – increase your selfconfidence, become a better speaker, learn to run effective meetings, and add that spark to your CV. Find out more at our club meetings, every Tuesday in RWW310, 5.45–7 pm. All welcome! http://www.facebook.com/PipiteaTM

Editors:

Duncan McLachlan & Cameron Price

Designer:

Imogen Temm

News Editor: Sophie Boot

Arts Editor: Chloe Davies

Chief Sub-Editor: Nick Fargher

Distributor: Joe Morris Feature Writer: Philip McSweeney (chief) Penny Gault Web Editor: Dexter Edwards News Interns: Simon Dennis Steph Trengrove Arts Editors: Nina Powles (Books), Charlotte Doyle (Film), Henry Cooke (Music), David Williams (Theatre), Simon Gennard (Visual Arts), Michael Graham (Television)

General Contributors Stella Blake-Kelly, Sam Bookman, Nicola Braid, Courtney Brown, Em Chrys, Sonya Clark, Denelle, Declan Doherty-Ramsey, Craig Doolan, Mata Freshwater, Merenia Gray, Ted Greensmith, Joel Hassan, Abe Hollingsworth, Emma Hurley, George Johnson, Liam Kennedy, Ari Luecker, Emilie Marschner, Jayne Mulligan, Sam Munneke, Annabelle Nichols, Sam Northcott, Zoe Russell, Beth Rust, Thomas Walter, Julia Watkin, Lily Paris West, Jeremy Young

Contributor of the Week Simon Gennard

E D I T O R @ S A L I E N T . O R G . N Z

Thinking Melbourne Uni? Get on track to your dream career at Australia’s number one university.‡ Wellington Information Evening Tuesday 5 August, 7:00pm Rydges Hotel Wellington Whether you’re interested in professional development, want to change careers or simply study something you love, graduate study at Australia’s leading university will give you the edge you’re looking for.

CRICOS No: 00116K