The Big Issue Australia #667 - Space Travel by The Big Issue Australia

Ed.

667 05 AUG 2022

DANIEL KALUUYA MARCIA HINES and JO NESBØ

SPACE TRAVEL Your ticket to

Ed.

667

05 AUG 2022

DANIEL KALUUYA MARCIA HINES and JO NESBØ

Your ticket to

SPACE TRAVEL

NO CASH? NO WORRIES! Some Big Issue vendors now offer contactless payments.

NATIONAL OFFICE Chief Executive Officer Steven Persson

ENQUIRIES

Chief Financial Officer Jon Whitehead

Advertising Simone Busija (03) 9663 4533 sbusija@bigissue.org.au

Chief Communications Officer Emma O’Halloran

Subscriptions (03) 9663 4533 subscribe@bigissue.org.au

National Operations Manager Jeremy Urquhart EDITORIAL

Editorial (03) 9663 4522 editorial@bigissue.org.au GPO Box 4911 Melbourne Vic 3001

Editor Amy Hetherington

Contributing Editor Michael Epis

Contributing Editor Anastasia Safioleas Editorial Coordinator Lorraine Pink Art Direction & Design GOZER (gozer.com.au)

PRINTER Printgraphics Pty Ltd 14 Hardner Road Mount Waverley Vic 3149

CONTRIBUTORS

PUBLISHED BY

Film Editor Aimee Knight

Big Issue In Australia Ltd (ABN 61 071 598 439) 227 Collins Street Melbourne Vic 3000

Small Screens Editor Claire Cao

WANT TO BECOME A VENDOR?

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS

Contact the vendor support team in your state. ACT (02) 6181 2801 Supported by Woden Community Service NSW (02) 8332 7200 Chris Campbell NSW, Qld + ACT Operations Manager Qld (07) 3221 3513 Chris Campbell NSW, Qld + ACT Operations Manager SA (08) 8359 3450 Matthew Stedman SA + NT Operations Manager Vic (03) 9602 7600 Gemma Pidutti Vic + Tas Operations Manager WA (08) 9225 7792 Simon Grammes WA Vendor Sales & Support State Co-ordinator

MAJOR PARTNERS Allens Linklaters, BHP, Clayton Utz, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Federal Government, Fluor Australia, Herbert Smith Freehills, Macquarie Group, MinterEllison, NAB, Newmont, Transport for New South Wales, Ovato, PwC, Qantas, REA Group, The Snow Foundation, Government of Western Australia, Woolworths MARKETING/MEDIA PARTNERS AdStream, Beem It, C2, Carat, Chocolate Studios, Macquarie Dictionary, Realview, Res Publica, Roy Morgan, Town Square DISTRIBUTION AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Music Editor Isabella Trimboli

The Big Issue is grateful for all assistance received from our distribution and community partners. A full list of these partners can be found at thebigissue.org.au.

Books Editor Clare Millar Cartoonist Andrew Weldon

The Big Issue is a proud member of the INSP, which incorporates 110 street publications like The Big Issue in 35 countries.

(03) 9663 4533

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

@BIGISSUEAUSTRALIA

HELLO@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

@THEBIGISSUE

THE BIG ISSUE AUSTRALIA

The Big Issue acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Can’t access a vendor easily? Become a subscriber! Every Big Issue subscription helps employ women experiencing homelessness and disadvantage through our Women’s Subscription Enterprise. To subscribe THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU or email SUBSCRIBE@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Contents

EDITION

667 28 FILM

UF…Ohhhhh Comedian turned director Jordan Peele has turned his hand to a UFO horror movie – unlike any other. And its stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer let us in on the action.

22 LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF

“My Upbringing Was Full of Love” Singer Marcia Hines on being a child of the 60s: finding her way to Woodstock, performing in Hair and moving to Australia from the US as a 16-year-old.

AN ELON MUSK ROCKET LAUNCHES TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

12.

Have Rocket, Will Travel by Wilson da Silva

Space tourism is all systems go, and the billionaire entrepreneurs have got their eye on the next venture: space commuting. Sydney to Singapore in half an hour anybody?

BOOKS

cover illustration by Nash Weerasekera @a.v.nash

Author Jo Nesbø – who still has a side hustle as a rock star – has two recent books on the shelves, a slew of TV projects on the way, and a new Harry Hole novel in the pipeline.

contents photo by Getty

THE REGULARS

04 05 06 08 11 18

Ed’s Letter & Your Say Meet Your Vendor Streetsheet Hearsay & 20 Questions My Word The Big Picture

27 36 37 38 39 41

Ricky Film Reviews Small Screen Reviews Music Reviews Book Reviews Public Service Announcement

Nesbø’s Kingdom

42 44 45 46

Tastes Like Home Puzzles Crossword Click

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

Fire in the Sky

massive fireball lit up the huge, open sky. We were hurtling through the night, along the flat Murray Valley Highway, on the way to visit my Aunty Jean in Leitchville (pop 250). Out there, in the depth of darkness, it feels like you can see all the stars in the Milky Way. The meteor was a brilliant orange. It felt like outer space had landed right next to the car. Dad and I woke up my brother and cousin Nathan in the back seat – but they’d missed the show. It had lasted mere seconds. The next day, Dad took us out to Kow Swamp to search for remnants of this alien object. I’m not sure what he expected us to find – a crater? Space debris? Superman? Few things capture the imagination like space, and the possibilities of what exists beyond what we can see. It’s why we all ended up trudging through ankle‑deep mud for what felt like hours in the heat. It’s why

Your Say LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT

we haven’t stopped gazing at the breathtaking new images from the James Webb Space Telescope, which offer the deepest, sharpest look into the universe yet. (We’ve included an image of Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula in these pages.) And it’s why billions are being spent on space travel, a fledgling industry that will soon take full flight. As Wilson da Silva writes in this edition, the reality of flying from Sydney to Singapore in half an hour is tantalisingly close. It’s a historic moment. And one we must get right, writes Dr Alice Gorman, for the sake of the space environment and humanity. As we launch this space edition into the world, it has even more of an impact on the stars of The Big Issue: the vendors. This fortnight, vendors receive two magazines for the price of one – thanks to the money raised during The Big Sell campaign earlier this year – which means they can earn even more income. That’s truly out of this world.

When a friend and I recently chatted with your Big Issue vendor Stephen B at Lygon Court in Carlton, he told us he was writing a story for The Big Issue on the Dudley Flats area and its history. Good on you Stephen, it’s a beautifully written story – and a great photo of you. Congratulations! AGNES LAWRIE GEELONG I VIC

Hi folks, I used to live in Brisbane and would buy The Big Issue from Cindy. I’m in London at the moment and bought the local UK edition of The Big Issue only to find Cindy on page 23! What a small world and lovely surprise. DOUG BROWN LONDON I UK

A friend of mine sells The Big Issue that I buy sometimes. Well done on 26 years! LOUIS CAMILLO VIA EMAIL

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

The Big Issue Story The Big Issue is an independent, not-for-profit magazine sold on the streets around Australia. It was created as a social enterprise 25 years ago to provide both a voice and a work opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage. Your purchase of this magazine has directly benefited the person who sold it to you. Big Issue vendors buy each copy for $4.50 and sell it to you for $9, keeping the profits. But The Big Issue is more than a magazine.

• Our Women’s Subscription Enterprise provides employment and training for women through the sale of magazine subscriptions as well as social procurement work. • The Community Street Soccer Program promotes social inclusion and good health at weekly soccer games at 24 locations around the country. • The Vendor Support Fund will offset the cost price of products for vendors, allowing them to earn a larger margin on their own street sales. • The Big Issue Education workshops provide school, tertiary and corporate groups with insights into homelessness and disadvantage, and provide work opportunities for people experiencing marginalisation. CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Agnes wins a copy of Around the Table by Julia Busuttil Nishimura. You can check out her recipe for Ricotta and Orange Olive Oil Cake on page 42. We’d also love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions: SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

YOUR SAY SUBMISSIONS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE.

Meet Your Vendor

KAIA

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE AT ROCKINGHAM FORESHORE, PERTH

interview by Pia Bonifant photo by Ross Swanborough

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

05 AUG 2022

I think I’m a pretty good person. Someone who’s kind to other people and happy to give anyone a go, as long as they treat people right. I’m pretty cruisey most of the time. My little brother said to me “leave the past in the past and look forward to the future” – and I try my best to do just that. I grew up in Perth. It was a violent home, and it’s something I wouldn’t wish on any child. I’m between a big and little brother, and we were very close when we were little. They were both my protectors. My little brother was funny and gorgeous – he still is – so he made us laugh during tough times. Both of my brothers have sold The Big Issue, so it’s a bit like a family business for us. I liked primary school, a couple of lovely teachers really got my learning difficulties and looked out for me. High school was tougher because the teachers and kids didn’t get me as much. I was homeless when I started selling The Big Issue. The stuff from my childhood was catching up with me, and I was couchsurfing. It was a pretty crappy time. The extra money meant I could pay for a bed each night. I eventually ran into a lovely person from St Bart’s and they helped me get a bed in a hostel. I’m now in my own place and I love it to bits. My little brother’s next door and we look after each other. I like being out in the world and I’m a bit of a social butterfly – but I do love a couple of lazy days to myself at home. It’s like time-out from real life. You definitely don’t get that couch-surfing. I volunteer with Perth Homeless Support Group and Street Friends every fortnight, sorting clothes and handing out doonas, toiletries, gloves and beanies. It’s cold when you’re sleeping rough. I really want to help because I know what it’s like. I feel lucky I’m not in that position anymore, and I feel for people that are. I’m working through a Certificate in Community Services online and I’d love to work with young people who are homeless one day. I reckon I’d be pretty good at it! I feel good about life at the moment. My psychologist introduced me to online meditation and I’m finding it really good. I keep telling other people to try it! My church is lovely, too, and I’ve got a couple of good friends who are always up for a trip to the movies. I’m a creative person and love painting and making jewellery. I did an acrylic painting class a year ago, and am saving up to do more classes. I’m saving up for driving lessons and a car, too. Selling The Big Issue helps with those extras. I’ve met some lovely people, and I really enjoy the work. I’m friends with a lot of the other vendors, which makes it nice to come to work.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

Top of the Pops I have been a vendor since 2014. I haven’t been selling very consistently lately due to ill health, but my goal is to become a better seller – a top seller! I like selling The Big Issue because I like socialising and keeping busy. SARINA CNR CREEK & EAGLE STS I BRISBANE

Olympic City There have been some changes in Brisbane. They are building new tunnels and planning for the Olympics in 10 years. People are worried about electricity going up and things being dearer at Woolworths and Coles. We hope we can get by selling The Big Issue and that people will keep buying it. It will be hard because the changes are obviously coming.

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

BRENDAN & JANINE

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Mother and Son Janine says: I couldn’t wait until Brendan came back from Tassie – we hadn’t seen each other in six months. He loves it over here in Brisbane, he has a girlfriend and all. He’s so happy. I love selling The Big Issue with my son, and I’m proud to be a Big Issue vendor for almost 10 years. I enjoy every bit of it; getting out and about, meeting new friends, getting to see regulars. I used to have my little dog with me but he’s a protective little fella. His name is Cracker, because he’s a firecracker! We leave him home now. He’s almost 14. We brought him all the way from Tasmania to be with us. He’s like a little sheepdog with the colours of a corgi. He’s very spoilt. Brendan says: I missed Mum while I was away, but at least I’m not in Hobart now. There were a lot of reasons why I left. I like selling The Big Issue with my mum. My pitch is outside H&M and I have been selling The Big Issue for about five or six years. JANINE AND BRENDAN MEDIBANK & H&M I BRISBANE

TED J AVID READER , WEST END I BRISBANE

A Scholarly Journey On 11 May I received my bachelor’s degree in psychological sciences. It has been an interesting journey where I have learned a lot about myself and truly developed and improved as a person. I am amazed that I was able to do a university type of degree and to receive the grades that I have. This is because in high school I was led to believe that I was not smart enough to attend university. So, to do a science-based degree is amazing. DARYL NORTHCOTE I MELBOURNE

Feeling Inspired When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. EDDIE SHERWOOD SHOPS I BRISBANE

Making People Smile My pitch is good on most days except there are a lot of beggars around me sometimes. They sit right next to me, which makes things hard on weekends when I have them and buskers. So I just keep talking to everyone that walks past, tell people to have a great and happy day or to have a great weekend. Most people react with a smile and encouraging words. I love making people smile. It may sound a bit silly but sometimes I get more out of that than I do selling a magazine. As for what kind of jobs I have had, I’ve

worked in construction, demolition, roof tiling and I also worked at Flemington Markets driving a forklift for years, which I loved doing. I love selling The Big Issue because interacting with people really helps my mental health. I also go to a place called The Rainbow Lodge in Glebe three times a week. I have nine grandchildren and a new great-grandson, who was born in July. And in September I’m going to visit my daughter and grandchildren on the Gold Coast, which I’m really looking forward to. Thank you! BEVAN PITT & MARKET STS I SYDNEY

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

Randy’s Tomatoes Sun-kissed perfection, Juice running down my arm. This is what I miss the most About the backyard Rocky Lane farm. He’d be discussing Plato, Or the days as a child digging up potatoes. He would have his knife ever ready to peel some for a snack… Those are the days I long to get back. No store-bought one could compare, His deft touch and years of knowledge grew more than our share A bag on the back cooler waiting for those he cared.

I have just been to Broome on holidays. This photo is of the day Mum and I went to the croc farm. On our arrival I petted a croc called Kevin. He was a small croc. We saw alligators and crocodiles. I learned lots of things about crocodiles. The most interesting was that only one

person can kill a crocodile and that is Crocodile Dundee. Crocs can kill horses. One lady lost her hand. She was fishing and the crocodile jumped out of the water and bit her hand off. Broome was very warm. I even went for a swim. BRYAN JAMISON CENTRE I CANBERRA

SPONSORED BY LORD MAYOR’S CHARITABLE FOUNDATION. COMMUNITY PHILANTHROPY MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN GREATER MELBOURNE AND BEYOND.

The lush valley soil, for whom he toiled gave birth to the best tomato gravy. KAY B ALDI, AINSLIE SHOPS I CANBERRA

05 AUG 2022

Happy Snaps!

Tomato sauce was put in jars kept under the stairs, With every bite I’d be transported to memories of fireflies flitting in the air.

BRYAN AND HIS MUM IN BROOME, WA

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

We are so proud of everything our dad achieved in his remarkable life. He was a healer and unifying force. His music brought people together.

“The robot broke the child’s finger. This is of course bad.” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, on a chessplaying robot that grabbed and broke its seven-year-old opponent’s finger during a match at the Moscow Open. The boy played on the next day. THE GUARDIAN I UK

“I’ve done so much over the years: drinking blood from a buffalo artery, munching on raw liver and heart. It’s not difficult, but it’s not very pleasant.” Adventurer and lapsed vegan Bear Grylls on his famously cast-iron stomach – though he does prefer his steak cooked, rare, when he’s not in “survivor mode”. GQ I UK

AAP I AU

“Eucalypts are notorious for being promiscuous and will readily receive pollen from other eucalypt species. They are certainly often not choosy when it comes to mating.” Son of a gum! Trevor Wilson, from the Australian Institute of Botanical Science, on a new species of eucalypt found in Sydney’s Hills District, which has become “frisky”, mating with other species in order to survive.

“One of my favourite examples of just how masculinity has changed is partially just because of the pearl necklaces you might see young men wearing in the street today, and that was a trend really started by Styles.” Professor Louie Dean Valencia, from Texas State, on the inspiration for his new uni course, Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet and European Pop Culture. NINE I AU

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

ABC I AU

“I was having a big Stranger Things moment – I’m like, Vecna? Is that you?” Mildura resident Tammy Szumowski wondered if the apocalypse had arrived when the sky lit up a vivid magenta…but it turned out to be a light coming from a secret medical cannabis farm just outside the Victorian town.

“They brought it back saying ‘Sorry, sorry’, maybe as an attempt to get him not to report it.” Antonio Visconti, a cafe owner in Naples, Italy, on a tourist who was robbed at gunpoint of his watch, while having a drink in one of the city’s main squares, only for an accomplice of the robber to return the timepiece seven minutes later once he realised it was a fake Richard Mille watch.

BBC I UK

CNN I US

“There’s something beautiful where you get up every morning... and you work for yourself and then you’ve got a chance to go and find a million dollars. That sort of puts a spring in your step.” Kelly Tishler, an opal miner in Lightning Ridge, on the spell-binding allure of the hunt for the rare black opal, found only in the NSW desert and Ethiopia. AL JAZEERA I QA

“First of all, I (will) hug him, and then maybe we will go to Rottnest Island, and I show him quokkas because I am totally obsessed with quokkas.” Vladyslav Guz on finally reuniting with his boyfriend Oleksandr in Perth, after they were separated when fleeing Ukraine as Russia invaded. ABC I AU

“Anyone who says words hurt has never been punched in the face.” Comedian Chris Rock addresses that infamous Will Smith slap he copped at the Oscars, during one of his recent comedy shows. VARIETY I US

PHOTO BY PHIL NITCHIE

Amos and Eban Roach, paying tribute to their father, Archie, who has passed away aged 66. Roach was a singer-songwriter, whose songs did so much to deepen understanding of Indigenous Australians.

20 Questions by Rachael Wallace

01 Which world-famous waterfalls span

the border of Canada and the USA? 02 Which actor, in which 1942 film,

utters the line: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine”? 03 In which Australian city is Manuka

Oval? 04 Who were the five members of

supergroup The Traveling Wilburys? 05 Athletes travelled to which city for

the 2022 Commonwealth Games? 06 What animal is commonly known

as the “mountain chicken”: a) cape buffalo, b) giant ditch frog, c) snowy owl or d) scarlet ibis? 07 Who is the new Speaker of the

House of Representatives? 08 What is the last letter of the Greek

alphabet?

“Twitter doesn’t cast movies.” The Good Place actor William Harper Jackson on the online frenzy of Marvel fans gunning for him to be cast as Mister Fantastic in the Fantastic Four reboot. So far, he hasn’t received a call. NME I UK

“When I looked at the brain activity, I knew this was a bad case. I thought this person can’t be just walking around in the world, so I got the lab to check the name.” Neuroscientist James Fallon was

THE AGE I AU

“When you are poor, the sun finds you faster.” Juanita Cruz-Perez, from San Antonio, Texas, where lower-income neighbourhoods have less shade in which to escape the heat – in a city that has seen more than 46 days over 38°C this year. THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

“There’s an economic strain on people and you see it when you go to Aldi and realise, ‘Shit, there are four security guards in this fucking discount grocery store to make sure I don’t run off with too many cans of tuna fish for free!’” Pixies frontman Frank Black on the “very dystopian” vibe in the world right now. NME I UK

FREQUENTLY OVERHEAR TANTALISING TIDBITS? DON’T WASTE THEM ON YOUR FRIENDS SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD AT SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

09 The two lead characters in the 2004

film The Notebook were played by whom? 10 Who was the founding editor of Cleo

magazine? 11 Which colour Smartie was first

released in 1988, in celebration of Smarties’ 50th anniversary? 12 What type of animals are ridden in

the Boulia Cup, a 1500 metre race in outback Queensland? 13 Where was Bon Scott, former lead

singer of AC/DC, born? 14 Pteridomania was the craze for what

in Victorian England? 15 Which soccer player will forever be

associated with the term “hand of God”? 16 Where on the body is the zygomatic

bone? 17 Which crime novelist famously

disappeared on 3 December 1926, sparking an extensive search operation, only to be found safe at a hotel 11 days later? 18 The lemniscate symbol is also

known as what? 19 Fenchurch Street is a train station

in which capital city? 20 Who sang with Elton John on the

2021 hit ‘Cold Heart’?

ANSWERS ON PAGE 44

05 AUG 2022

NEWSWEEK I US

almost 60 when he discovered he was a psychopath, after reviewing brain scans and stumbled across one – his own – with all the markers of a serial killer, namely decreased activity in the brain’s emotion centre.

“He’s a good boy. He lets me “The kids are just pet him. He just choosing their sits there, and he brides…” loves bagels… He Overheard by Loz at Timezone was such a good in Northlands, Vic. The kids friend.” were choosing their prize, Florida man Paul not brides! Fortin after being arrested for illegally feeding a threemetre alligator named Hank, who lives in his neighbourhood pond. EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Jessie Tu @jess_tu2

Out of Bounds In the library, I didn’t have to be anybody else. I didn’t have to crack jokes. I didn’t have to hide from bullies. I didn’t have to make up some holiday just to compete with the other kids and their beach house vacations down the South Coast. Surrounded by quietness, solitude and acceptance, surrounded by authors both living and dead – Mem Fox, Tim Winton, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen – I could venture out of bounds without permission. In the library, I could feel safe, adventurous and resolute in myself, sheltered from the confusion and longing of being 11 and not fitting in with the crowd. I have never been a charismatic person, and I never will be. But books don’t demand anything of me. I step inside libraries today and the same feeling returns to me, though in a muted state. The shelves and shelves of Encyclopedia Britannica I grew up pouring through are now gone, replaced by phones. Back then, our library had only one or two Macs, those large, jewel-coloured computers with bodies that took up an entire desk. Computer time was rare. You had one monitor to share between 25 kids. When you got your turn, it was 30 minutes, max. At home, screen time was rare too. Our days were filled with writing in notebooks, reading from textbooks, crawling on the floor, running around the playground. Our bags were heavy with books we’d lug from the library. This was the age of visceral learning, before screen colonised every aspect of our lives. The local community library was a warm extension of the classroom and the school. There, the world could not let you down. There were too many adventures to go on. Today, computers are accessible like limbs. The romance of time and space travel has diminished. But the magic of that library in my primary school is something I still carry in my heart, and for all my life.

Jessie Tu is the author of A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing. She is the staff writer at Women’s Agenda, and book critic at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

hen I was a student at Carlingford West Public, I was intrigued by the borders of our little school in the northwest suburbs of Sydney. “Out of Bounds” the teachers called it; the edges of the playground that were unsupervised by staff members. These areas seemed dangerous to me, as if by venturing out there I would be met by some harmful foreign force. Yet I wanted to defy the teachers. I wanted to see what was beyond the pines. From the outside, I was a passive kid. I feared the admonishment of adults, especially adults with official authority. I feared it more than my desire for defiance, for anarchy. Always the first to sit up straight and take to the floor when I was told, I was gearing up to be the ultimate insecure overachiever. I hated being called on to answer a question – using my voice meant being singled out, having all eyes on me – so, I never spoke in class. I was the quiet achiever. Adults around me thought that because I was quiet, I didn’t have much to say. But I made myself heard by other means. Throughout my childhood I wrote to give voice to my opinions. Still today, the page is my true safe space. And it was in the small, one-storey library at Carlingford West Public that I made this discovery. It was there, between aisles of low-shelved books, that I found my people. I became a Library Monitor in Year 5, a privilege that enabled me access to the Teachers’ Resources Area (a locked, private room in a corner of the library) and special borrowing rights, like extended borrowing times. What I loved, most of all, was that I had an excuse to spend all my lunchtimes there. I didn’t have many friends, and so I’d use my role as a proxy: Where was Jessie all lunchtime? She’s always in the library. My roles were simple, and to me at the time, urgent and necessary. I piled books onto the front desk and scanned them. I put them into a trolley and returned them to the shelves. I loved waiting at the front desk to see who had returned which books, and imagining where borrowers had travelled to inside their minds. That is what books give us: access to another world, another life.

05 AUG 2022

In the primary school library of her youth, Jessie Tu found her voice, her people and her reason for being.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

A boom in the global space industry will one day see us flying anywhere on Earth in less than an hour. And that’s just the beginning… by Wilson da Silva

Wilson da Silva is a journalist in Sydney and the founding editor of Cosmos science magazine, who’s on the waitlist to fly into space with Virgin Galactic.

05 AUG 2022

@wilsondasilva

digital collage by Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison

HAVE ROCKET, WILL TRAVEL

JEFF BEZOS’ NEW SHEPARD ROCKET LAUNCHES

“Collecting data from space was once what governments and large companies did, because it was difficult and expensive to launch a satellite,” says Andy Koronios, chief executive of Adelaide-based SmartSat CRC, a consortium of industry and researchers developing space technologies. “But it’s a thousand times cheaper than it was 15 years ago, because launch costs have fallen, and you can now get 1000 times more computing power in a small package.” A smaller subset of the industry are space launch companies. Where once mostly government-owned companies – like Europe’s Arianespace or Russia’s Roscosmos – built and launched rockets, there are now nine commercial companies in operation, lobbing payloads into space. Another 14 – mostly born in the 2010s – have rocket systems under development, with launches expected by 2025. Musk’s SpaceX is the behemoth of the market: in 2021, it accounted for a fifth of the world’s orbital blast offs, with 31 launches. By July this year, SpaceX had already surpassed that number. And it’s only been two years since SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, lifting off on a Falcon 9 rocket, become the first private passenger vehicle to reach orbit, delivering two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). There have been another six NASA passenger flights with Crew Dragon, followed by a privately funded one that became the first civilian space mission. In September 2021, billionaire Jared Isaacman and three others (selected in a national competition), orbited the Earth for two days. Dubbed “Inspiration4”, the trip raised US$243 million for St Jude’s, a children’s research hospital in Memphis. Tourist accommodation is coming soon to space, too. Axiom, a space infrastructure company founded by ex-NASA staff, is building a module attached to the ISS for commercial research and manufacturing – and an adjoining crew habitat with large windows for viewing Earth. Once the module is complete, Axiom plans to offer tourists vacations on the ISS, at least twice a year. But SpaceX is not the only game in town. In July 2021, Virgin Galactic – a pioneering space tourism company founded by Richard Branson – sent the British billionaire into space for the first time. He was followed less than two weeks later by American billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, aboard a New Shepard capsule created by Bezos’ own rocket company, Blue Origin.

PHOTOS BY BLUE ORIGIN, TOBY BELA, VIRGIN GALACTIC

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

n the 1930s, the notion that, within decades, people would be flying to any point on the globe in less than a day was preposterous. And yet today, you can jump on a plane in Sydney and be in Los Angeles in 14 hours; and every year, more than three million people fly between New York and London in just seven hours. Most of us probably take this for granted. But in 1935, it took 12-and-a-half days to fly from Brisbane to London. Even by 1947, thanks to aviation advances after World War II, flying Sydney to London took four days. Today, there are more than 9700 planes with 1.3 million passengers in the sky at any one time. Six million people are flying somewhere daily; that’s more than the entire population of Sydney or Melbourne in the air, every day. Two things made this possible: rapid advances in aviation technology, which helped bring costs down; and the rising demand to fly as ticket prices fell, bringing more and more people to air travel. And it’s happening again: this time, in space travel. And it’s a revolution that’s largely thanks to billionaire enfant terrible Elon Musk, who plans to start building a city on Mars in the 2030s. In just 14 years, his private rocket company SpaceX has disrupted the global launch market by doing things long thought impossible: reusing rockets on a regular basis by having boosters return to the pad and land vertically; creating more powerful engines cheaper, and faster, than ever before; and passing those savings on to customers. Between 1970 and 2000, it cost an average US$18,500 per kilo to launch anything into space. In 2008, SpaceX launched the world’s first privately funded rocket, Falcon 1, charging $9930 a kilo to put payload into orbit. Today, this has fallen to just $2720 per kilo, thanks to its improved Falcon 9 rocket. This has driven other aerospace companies to redesign their rockets and find savings. Today, the world is awash with space start-ups. More than US$15 billion was raised to finance 241 companies in 2021, up from a then-record US$7.7 billion in 2020. Most are building satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit, driven by the burgeoning demand for broadband internet, navigation services like detecting illegal fishing vessels, and remote observation work like predicting flood paths based on topography, or tracking bushfires in real time. The industry is forecast to reach US$558 billion by 2026.

today for just US$171). It’s no surprise that most passengers in the early 1930s were businesspeople and government officials, and only 10 per cent tourists. But as prices fell and flying times shrank, demand boomed, and air travel became a decidedly consumer experience – by 1940, 55 per cent of Pan Am’s passengers were flying for fun. That day may arrive much sooner – again, thanks to SpaceX. For the past three years, it has been developing – at frenetic pace – something never seen before: a fleet of fully reusable, high capacity, fast turnaround spacecraft; more like a jumbo jet of space. At 120 metres tall, Starship is the largest rocket ever built, with more than double the lift-off thrust of NASA’s Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the Moon. It can haul 100 tonnes to orbit. And it can carry up to 800 passengers into space in a single flight. Made mostly of shiny stainless steel (like the rockets of classic sci-fi movies), Starship is the centrepiece of Musk’s ambition to not only build settlements on Mars, but ferry massive freight into space at rock bottom prices. Musk has estimated the cost would eventually fall to just US$10 per kilo – less than 0.4 per cent of today’s best price. NASA has commissioned two Starship flights to return American astronauts to the Moon in 2025. Musk has promised Starship will eventually fly passengers across intercontinental distances in less than an hour. Examples on SpaceX’s website include Sydney to Singapore in 31 minutes or London to Hong Kong in 34 minutes. Unlike today’s aircraft, which spend hours (and burn tonnes of jet fuel) barrelling through Earth’s dense atmosphere, Starship would catapult above it all, fly through the frictionless vacuum of space at enormous speeds, then land vertically at the desired location. “It’s not just a really big rocket,” wrote physicist and blogger Casey Handmer. “It’s an attempt to achieve the Holy Grail of rocketry – a fully and rapidly reusable orbital class rocket that can be mass manufactured.” So it may not be too long before a lot more of us get a chance to experience space. People who have, marvel rapturously about the perspective it gives you, as William Shatner did after touching down: “I’m so filled with emotion. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. To see the blue colour whip by you, and now you’re staring into blackness... Everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see this.”

05 AUG 2022

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, and has been developing a fleet of new rockets. New Shepard is the runt of the litter, an 18-metre rocket meant to give tourists a taste of weightlessness and a view of Earth from space, after which the passenger capsule parachutes back down, while its booster rocket detaches to land separately. It can carry six passengers, and has already flown five times, taking 26 passengers into space – including Bezos’ brother Mark and William Shatner, the Canadian actor who was the original Captain Kirk in Star Trek. Blue Origin’s biggest rocket, New Glenn, is a 98-metre giant designed to lift 45 tonnes into space and is scheduled to take its first flight at the end of this year. Like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, New Glenn’s booster is fully reusable. Virgin Galactic takes a different tack: two pilots and four passengers sit inside a rocket-powered spaceplane that is attached to the underbelly of a large, high-altitude aircraft “mothership”. At a height of 15km above Earth, the spaceplane is detached, its rocket engine ignites, and the spaceplane shoots off into space at 3.4 times the speed of sound. Passengers experience 2.5 times normal gravity as they rocket into space, then float around in weightlessness, looking down on our planet and up at the blackness of space, before the craft re-enters the atmosphere and lands on a runway like an aeroplane. Branson’s company is building a fleet of five larger spaceplanes (each carrying six passengers) and two motherships, so it can ferry tourists into space weekly, once regular services begin; it plans to have 400 flights into space a year by 2026. So far, the first spaceplane, Unity, has flown into space four times, and there’s a backlog of some 600 paid‑up “astronauts-in-waiting”. Although these flights into space – for tourism or business – are the real deal, they are not cheap. Virgin Galactic costs US$450,000 per flight, while Axiom is charging US$55 million for an eight-day stay on the International Space Station – including accommodation and food, flight to and from the ISS, and a 15-week astronaut-training program. Blue Origin has not made its prices public. These prices are exorbitantly expensive – but so were prices at the birth of aviation. When Pan Am began flights between New York and Marseilles, France, a one-way ticket in today’s money cost US$7994 (you can fly the same route

RICHARD BRANSON IN SPACE

MOCK-UP OF A SPACEX STARSHIP FLIGHT

SPACE COWBOYS The race into space is in full flight. But in our hurry to plunder the riches found on other planets, are we doomed to make the same mistakes we’ve already made on Earth? by Dr Alice Gorman @drspacejunk

Dr Alice Gorman is an internationally recognised space archaeologist and author of the award-winning book Dr Space Junk vs the Universe: Archaeology and the Future.

IMAGE BY GETTY/NASA

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

umans have been sending rockets into outer space for 65 years. For much of this time, we’ve thought of space as a vast empty nothingness, a cold void that requires all our ingenuity to survive. We never thought that outer space might need protecting from us. In 1957 there were just three satellites orbiting Earth. Now there are more than 4500, and a frightening amount of space debris. One estimate is more than 34,000 objects over 10cm in size, and tens of millions of smaller particles. In weight, space junk is the equivalent of 10 million cane toads. A collision with debris – travelling at an average speed of 7km per second – can cause spacecraft to break up or fragment, creating even more debris in the process. Options for cleaning up this mess are limited. At the moment, the only method is waiting for objects to fall back into the atmosphere and burn up. Many of the technologies being developed to actively remove debris involve tipping it back towards Earth too. Effectively, the upper atmosphere has become a planetary-scale garbage incinerator.

and tenuous “exosphere” of gases. It’s seismically active with moonquakes occurring regularly. It also has water cycles, which we are only just beginning to understand. Thanks to images from numerous lunar missions, including close-ups of the lunar surface taken by the Apollo astronauts, the Moon is the celestial body most familiar to us. Lunar landscapes have their own distinct aesthetic and environmental values. Because the lunar surface is not constantly renewed by plate tectonics, the history of the solar system is inscribed in its dust, craters and lava fields. Rocket transport and infrastructure such as mining installations, power plants, waste management and habitations will inevitably impact these landscapes. The lunar surface could be “terraformed” into an industrial landscape. Rocket exhaust could loft the fine lunar dust into orbit, creating a cloud around the Moon. The albedo, or the way light reflects off the surface, may be altered. We wouldn’t likely see this with the naked eye, but satellites and telescopes will be able to capture these changes. And soon there’d be junk in lunar orbit too. Without an atmosphere to burn it, it will crash directly onto the lunar surface. Current mining plans are focused on the water ice trapped in the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSR)

05 AUG 2022

We never thought that outer space might need protecting from us.

of the lunar South Pole. Here, two-billion-year-old shadows in deep craters shelter lakes of ice. PSR are rare in the solar system; to our knowledge they occur only on the Moon, Mercury and the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt. The ice will be used to make rocket fuel and provide water and oxygen for industry and to sustain human life. And, of course, there are the environmental impacts that we don’t yet know about. This highlights a broader problem. There is no environmental management framework for space. Without living ecologies, many don’t see space as an environment to begin with, and so believe there are no environmental values worth protecting: space is just a set of resources for humans to use. Ironically, the 1960s images of Earth taken by Apollo missions were pivotal in creating a new understanding of Earth as a fragile environment that needed our care. The environmental movement in space is 50 years behind the thinking on Earth. What are the solutions? Right now, it seems there are two positions. One is to stay on Earth, sort out our problems, and give up space travel in order to avoid wreaking the same environmental havoc we have on Earth on other orbits and planets. The other is the current trajectory: a form of space capitalism in which science plays a secondary role in supporting commercial exploitation. But these are not the only options. The Australian ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood outlined an approach to the environment she called co-participation. In this approach, the space environment would be treated as an active agent whose integrity must be considered, rather than just a resource to be used. The ideal endpoint is a “mutual flourishing” instead of one entity being sacrificed to the needs of the other. One way of achieving this for the Moon might be to grant it legal personhood, as proposed by space scholars Eytan Tepper and Christopher Whitehead. In this model, trustees would represent the interests of the Moon to ensure that human activities do not compromise its environmental integrity. This is a paradoxical position, of course, but holds promise as a way of breaking out of the binds of space capitalism. Although the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 says that space is the common province of all humanity, in reality some nations derive more benefits from it than others. These are the same nations who cause the most damage. In the space world, there’s a lot of discussion about creating equal opportunities for “emerging space nations”, but this doesn’t fix the problem of inequalities created by a long history of colonialism. The “emerging space nations” are being forced to play by the same rules that excluded them from space to begin with, and which lead to the potential “tragedy of the commons” in Earth orbit. The major space-faring nations and wealthy space corporations should be shouldering the responsibility for causing environmental harm in Earth orbit and the upper atmosphere. With the Moon, there’s still a chance to get things right. But it will take new ways of thinking.

However, burning spacecraft materials create particulates of soot and alumina, which can cause ozone molecules to disintegrate. The ozone layer protects life on Earth from the Sun’s savage UV radiation. This might have been manageable at previous spacecraft re-entry rates. With the launch of the megaconstellations, such as SpaceX’s Starlink, the problem is going to get worse. By 2030, there may be as many as 17,000 satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Some will become junk that stays up there, increasing collision risks, while others will fall out of orbit and burn, increasing the amount of alumina in the upper atmosphere. The Moon is at risk too. Space agencies are partnering with private companies to develop the technology to return to the Moon, and stay this time. The isotope Helium 3, rare earth elements, water ice and various other minerals are the target of commercial exploitation to supply Earth, support a lunar economy and perhaps provide resources to go on to Mars. Some argue that moving mining into space will reduce the environmental impacts of extractivism on Earth. But doesn’t this just mean transferring the same impacts to the Moon? The Moon is often thought of as a dead world. This is a matter of perspective. The Moon has a very fragile

Series by Giacomo d’Orlando

The Big Picture

Finding Nemo An underwater edible garden off the coast of Italy is revolutionising the future of agriculture. by Sonia Nair @sonianair

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Sonia Nair is program manager at the Melbourne Writers Festival as well as a writer and critic.

LUCA GAMBERINI HARVESTS BASIL UNDERWATER

FOR MORE IMAGES: GIACOMODORLANDO.COM.

05 AUG 2022

was breathing without any oxygen 10 metres underwater. That’s a unique sensation not many people get to experience. I was submerged in the sea and breathing like a fish,” says photographer Giacomo d’Orlando of his visits to Nemo’s Garden, the world’s first underwater greenhouse. Yet he obtained his open water diving certificate only a week before he first started documenting the otherworldly pod farm, off the coast of Noli. “I’m from South Italy and I’ve been in the sea since I was born. I’m very confident in the water,” he says. Tapping into a similar lifelong love of water is how Sergio Gamberini, founder of Italian diving equipment manufacturer Ocean Reef Group, came up with the idea for Nemo’s Garden. What started out as an experiment in 2012 to see if basil could grow in inflatable balloons underwater has morphed into a greenhouse complex with six air-filled biospheres, which are anchored to the seabed and float below the sea. Managed by Sergio, his son Luca and a team of engineers, divers and scientists, Nemo’s Garden has since grown more than 100 different crops, from herbs, fruit and vegetables to orchids. The benefits Nemo’s Garden presents for the future of sustainable agriculture production are manifold. “The intense phenomenon we’re living through right now in Italy is desertification,” d’Orlando observes. “Meanwhile, agriculture takes up 70 per cent of the world’s freshwater. A planet that is getting drier and an agricultural industry that needs almost all the freshwater we have, is why Nemo’s Garden was born: to counteract these two problems at the same time.” Being a hydroponic operation, no land is necessary and the water required for irrigation is obtained from condensation on the biospheres’ inner walls, transforming seawater into freshwater. D’Orlando visited Nemo’s Garden several times between April and September 2021 to capture the project during various stages: the mounting of the biospheres, the seeding operation, the growing process, the final harvest, and monitoring at Ocean Reef’s headquarters. And he says everything he’s tasted from the underwater farm has been spectacular. “The thing is these plants are developed with more essential oils and polyphenolic compounds, which makes them way more flavoured and perfumed compared to normal plants. “One basil leaf grown in the biosphere has the taste of 10 to 15 leaves simultaneously. I’ve had underwater basil pesto and a prosecco cocktail with thyme,” he chuckles. Having perfected cultivating plants underwater, d’Orlando says the team at Nemo’s Garden is now ready to export the system to other parts of the world. “I’m always trying to find stories like this. We need happy news, otherwise all we hear about is war, economic crises and climate change. It makes you think: why am I living this life? But life is beautiful.”

GABRIELE CUCCHIA SETS OFF TO ANCHOR THE BIOSPHERES

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

GETTING THE BIOSPHERE READY

BASIL IS TRANSPORTED IN PLASTIC BAGS TO AVOID CONTACT WITH SEA WATER

FOOD SCIENTIST LAURA PISTELLI HAS A LOT ON HER PLATE

FARMERS AT WORK

SERGIO GAMBERINI, WIFE CRISTINA AND THEIR HARVEST

Letter to My Younger Self

My Upbringing Was Full of Love Singer Marcia Hines on Woodstock, Hair and adopting Australia at 16. by Anastasia Safioleas Contributing Editor @anast

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

y 16-year-old self is not very different to the person I am today. I’ve always been a strong-minded person because of my upbringing. At 16 what are you scared of? Nothing. And so you should be. That’s when life is great: a journey that’s an open book and you have very little, if any, baggage if you’ve had a good upbringing. My upbringing was full of love. When you’ve got love, you can basically accomplish and do anything…it’s a very powerful thing. A lot of it came from my mother, but so much of it came from other people as well. What’s that great saying? It takes a village to raise a child. I was very lucky and I had a great village around me in Boston before I left and I came to Australia. My parents were Jamaican and were migrants in America. The Jamaican kids were very different to Americans, but we were all accepted. Going to Woodstock was amazing. It was all over the radio that this concert was going to happen in upstate New York. I said to my mum, “Can I go?” She said, “Hell no!” I was a babysitter in my neighbourhood and I took care of a little girl called Honrae. Her mother wanted to go, so she went to my mum and said, “Can Marcia come with us?” I wanted to see Jimi Hendrix, Arlo Guthrie and Sly and the Family Stone, but when we got to Woodstock the little girl hated it. Her mother said, “Okay Marcia we’re gonna head back to Boston.” I said “Okay, bye!” And therein lies who I am. I stayed for days… I was trusted enough to have this big adventure in Australia at 16. I had friends in

05 AUG 2022

TOP: WITH JON ENGLISH, MARCIA’S JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR CO-STAR MIDDLE: WITH AUSTRALIAN IDOL JUDGES DICKO AND KYLE SANDILANDS BOTTOM: WITH DAUGHTER DENI

I can fit in. My personality here in Australia is relatively carefree, but in America I’ve got to watch my back. To me America has gone upside down. It’s a sad state of affairs to see what it was when I left and what it’s becoming. Nobody seems happy, nobody trusts anybody – that’s not the country I grew up in. My work ethic comes from my Jamaican heritage and my American upbringing. When I grew up, you could be anything in the world you dreamed of. That was encouraged as a kid. All you got to do is work your butt off. One of the biggest challenges in my life would be when I was asked to do Jesus Christ Superstar, because it was a big gig. I always find recording challenging because it’s forever. And I still get very nervous about gigs. I want them to be good. Losing my brother Dwight [to suicide] was pretty full on. But what could I do except shed tears – we were very close. We were 18 months apart, he was older than me. There isn’t a day I don’t think of him. Or my [late] mum. I still talk to my ma, especially when things are a bit strained, I think Oh ma, please help me out on this one. I don’t believe they leave you. I just believe you can’t see them, their spirits stay with you. Australian Idol rejuvenated my career because it introduced me to another generation of people. I found it really difficult in the beginning – to judge somebody when all they wanted to do is do what I do for a living: sing. People called me “the nice judge”. I’m not nice, I’m realistic. When you speak to somebody, it’s best to speak to them metered and kind because that’s how I’ve succeeded in my career – people were very kind. If I messed up, don’t think I wasn’t told. So when I was telling the kids what they could do to be better, I remembered how kind people were to me. They looked as if they were hearing you, but I swear, they were like a deer in the headlights! I don’t think that I would have done [Australian Idol] as a kid. I felt for them… It was a great gig. I really enjoyed it, once I got a handle on it. What advice would I give my 16-yearold self? Would she listen?! I’d tell her keep your eye on the prize, Marcia. Do what you know is best. And remember your upbringing.

MAIN PHOTO BY RICCARDO RAITI, DENI AND MARCIA HINES BY JOHN APPLEYARD/NEWSPIX

Boston who said, “Why don’t you do Hair here?” And I said, “Oh no, I don’t want to be stuck in Boston.” I wanted to experience other countries. But back then people didn’t know a lot about Australia – I actually first thought it was Austria! My mother said, “Why don’t you go and check it out and if you don’t like it you can always come home.” I had no idea what I was doing except I knew that I wanted to sing, and it was an incredible opportunity to do the most popular show in the world at that point in time. When I arrived in Australia in 1970, I didn’t experience any racism. We were the toast of the country. Hair was on another level. And I wasn’t the only Black kid in the show. I went to an all-white school in Boston, so I know what it is to be Black. It’s not a problem. If it is, you can kind of sniff it out. Being perceptive is a large part of being alive and if someone doesn’t like me because of my colour, then it’s okay. Once again, I’ll speak of my mother Esmeralda McPherson. She said to me: “Marcia, you can’t like everyone and everyone can’t – and won’t – like you so just move along. Don’t dwell.” That’s been my motto for my whole life. I didn’t realise when I got here that I was pregnant with Deni. I think if I had known I would have probably stayed home. I’m glad I didn’t know. The saving grace was a couple of the other girls [in Hair] had babies. Now, Harry M [Miller, the producer of Hair] wasn’t that thrilled about it, but we all did our jobs. It’s not like we were absent because of the babies. We all banded together and took care of the kids and I was able to have a nanny, so I knew she’d be fine when I was on stage. Then I’d go home and take care of the baby. The biggest surprise of my life is that my career is still strong and I’m still doing well. I didn’t come to Australia and say, “I’m going to Australia to be a star.” I just came to do a gig. One of the really great surprises, as stupid as it sounds, was when I won Queen of Pop [voted by TV Week readers in 1976, 77 and 78], because I wasn’t a citizen then. Australia had adopted me, although I’d already adopted Australia. That was back in the day when people would pick up a TV Week, fill out a coupon, find an envelope and a stamp, address it and send it in. It took great effort and it meant people cared. I feel very at home here. When I go to America, my personality has to change so

A Beer for His Ghost Cadance Bell heads to the pub for a frothy, and feels the stirring of a phantom masculinity. Cadance Bell is a writer, film director and producer who likes Pokémon Go and short walks to the fridge. She is openly transgender and freaking loves burritos. @cadancebell

illustration by Janelle Barone

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

’ve only ever enjoyed the economy of beer. The taste I can’t stand; I reckon beer tastes like the carbonated sweat of a brickie’s jocks. That didn’t stop me brewing it in a cupboard on the cheap as a young man: a dastardly vintage with notes of church wine and permanent marker. “What ya havin’ mate?” “Three schooners of New, thanks. And could we please have the pool balls?” “Yep, just need to leave your ID behind the bar.” I handed him my unconditional, full-adult, I-no-longer-have-to-stick-a-plastic-letter-onthe-grill-of-my-car driver’s licence. I wanted him to acknowledge the colour of it, have its security holograms wink as he scrutinised the card and nodded, impressed.

“What do I owe you for the beers?” I said, all husky and whatnot. “That’ll be five forty.” We’ll pause here because we’re talking about ordering three schooners (kind of like what you might call pints in Victoria) at just $1.80 a beer! Even someone like me who reckons beer tastes like the fruit of a twisted bum tree would have a mild conniption at that pricing. It sounds ridiculous that a litre of unleaded today is dearer than a schooner of New at happy hour in the long long ago, but I swear that was the pricing for members of the Mudgee RSL back in 2004. “Here you go, boys!” I said to my mates, resting the fizzy amber glasses on a long, tall bistro table. “Thanks bro!”

“On ya, man.” I can only ever win half a game of pool, and never the half that matters. At some point shortly after I realised I was in front I blue-shelled myself and couldn’t claim another pocket. “Christ mate, your eyes painted on?” Matey said as I sunk another white and then I sunk another amber. I winced as the yeasty bubbles skipped along my tongue bits. “Well, I mean, if they were regulation pockets…” I said. “Did you fellas check out that There’s Something About Miriam show?” Other Matey said. “Aw yeah, bloody hell – how about that, hey?! She was a bloke the whole time!” Matey replied. “Can you imagine that? Signing up to be on a reality dating show broadcast all over the world and you reckon you’ve fallen for some hottie ‘chick’!”– and here he air-quoted, leaning on the word like a stubborn cage door – “except…she actually has a wang!” “Nah, didn’t she…he…it, whatever… Didn’t it have a surgery or something?” They looked at me with their pool cues in one hand, beer in the other. Sampled from history those items could be pitchforks and ales, nets and flagons, spears and wine,

Labor couldn’t lose, not even with Electricity Bill zinging them into shape. That inevitability, coupled with the death of Bob Hawke days earlier, had fused into some dumb part of my brain like a deceased warehouse cat fuses to a shaggy carpet. A fit of olde masculinity stirred in me, and like a phantom limb I reflexed it, summoning a foolproof plan – I would go to The John Curtin Hotel, Hawkey’s favourite drinking place, and skol a beer for his ghost! When the hipster told me the price of the beer, I wanted to cut off his man-bun. But this was Melbourne, the place with the food, and I was on his turf – mess with him and I wouldn’t make it past St Kilda uncancelled. At nearly 15 bucks for a pint (something like what you might call a schooner in Sydney), I assumed it would glow and come with sea monkeys, but it was just beer and it tasted like sock. I skolled it in a few seconds, live-streaming it to Facebook for the internet points. A rugged, outdoorsy school friend I hadn’t talked to in 15 years called it a good effort. Moments later I was in the women’s bathroom bringing it all back up, foamier than when it’d gone in. It felt like I’d swallowed a dumbbell.

We’ll pause here because we’re talking about ordering three schooners (kind of like what you might call pints in Victoria) at just $1.80 a beer!

“It’s Cady!” Amanda said. She was the brightest thing in the room when I returned to her, wobbling, still trying to get my land legs back. I went to her and put my head on her chest. The machine squeezed her legs and hissed and carried on as she docked me into her warmth. And I squeezed her too, my fingers falling between hers like a jigsaw. “When do you pee for the first time?” I asked. “Tomorrow!” “Wow, I wonder how different it’s gonna feel?” “Dunno,” she said. My tummy turned itself into a croissant of cramp and I caught a foamy burp too late to make it subtle. Amanda giggled and my head bounced with the roll of her body. I thought about how right she was when I first entered the room and I smiled, willing the belly beer foam to bugger off for just a wee bit so that I could finish melting. THE ALL OF IT: A BOGAN RHAPSODY IS OUT NOW.

05 AUG 2022

Fifteen Years Later The machine was a brain-dead anaconda. Its compression socks slurped the full length of her legs, disappearing into the void of her hospital gown. The machine convulsed, constricting the socks with a gummy chew until it released them in a screet hiss, paused for a spell, then gobbled again. Amanda hadn’t left the bed for five days while she recovered from the operation to upgrade her plumbing. The machine helped her avoid blood clots. “Babe,” I said, expelling a dusty thought I’d been hacking away at, “would you mind if I left and went to the city for a bit?” “Of course not; go on an adventure!” My question came from a new voice; three months earlier I’d had my vocal folds shortened by a world-leading surgeon in Seoul, South Korea. It let me speak with a feminine voice effortlessly, putting a Ctrl+Z Undo on the “voice drop” of male puberty. If you’ve ever wondered what the net worth of a puberty is, I can tell you that the manly voice bit is worth around a cool 12 grand. I left the hospital and caught a tram into the city. It was election day 2019, nine months before COVID would birth itself onto an ungrateful Australia, and the city was Melbourne: the place with the food. Word on the street was

I knelt, splay-legged in my denim skirt, scrambling to keep my hair out of the bowl. Surrounding me on the stall walls were layers of graffiti. I turned my head between rounds of chunder to see that some of it was detailed Sharpie debate, referenced by uni kids, amid a maelstrom of colourful stickers for anything that stuck.

in the same pose of men everywhere, frozen in an act of re‑encoding their integrity in line with the tribe. “What do you reckon, mate?” they asked me.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

PHOTO BY JAMES BRAUND

wrote a couple of issues back about a visit to Uluwatu Temple in Bali, but got so side-tracked by the evil macaque monkeys lurking in the shadows that I forgot why I was actually at the temple. Oh, that’s right, there was a show on. Nothing says Bali is back in business than a sunset performance of the Kecak Fire Dance. I sat with hundreds of other tourists in a very lovely amphitheatre that faced the sea. The sun slipped into the Indian Ocean and our faces glowed orange. The show began when 70 men in traditional garb commenced syncopated, trance-like chanting, with hypnotic countermelodies rising and drifting out to sea. Elaborately dressed characters then entered, and for the next hour the high drama of Prince Rama, his wife Sita, the white monkey Hanoman and the evil Ravana played out, as it has every night at Uluwatu Temple for, well, quite some time now. It was my first trip to Bali, that mountainous volcano-poked island, famous for yoga, surfing beachside resorts and AFL players performing lewd acts in Mexican-themed nightclubs. None of that stuff has anything to do with the “real” Bali of course, if such a thing still exists. It surprises some people to learn (ie it surprised me to learn) that the Balinese people traditionally steered clear of the sea (it was the domain of demons) and that wellness bowls are not the national dish. The island is actually far more interesting than any of the stuff it’s become known for. Bali is an outlier: a Hindu island in a sea of Islam. Its religion has historical roots in the Hindu-following Javanese Empire of Majapahit, which ruled throughout Indonesia from the late 1200s, and invaded Bali in 1343. When the empire fell throughout the archipelago their royalty fled to Bali, and their culture continued, resisting the wave of Islam that swept through the rest of the islands. It’s given the island a richness of culture

few tourists will ever understand or even see. Except – apparently – at a Kecak show. You’d be forgiven for thinking the performance is centuries old, but it actually dates only to the 1930s, and it wasn’t even written by a local. Kecak’s progenitor was a German painter, Walter Spies, who got together with local dancer, Wayan Limbak, and whipped up a show for the tourist trade. It was loosely based on the ancient Hindu drama Ramayana, with the more pantomime elements come from “djanger” dances inspired by a visiting Malay operetta company in the 1920s. It’s no criticism; assimilating new influences into traditional forms has always been part of Balinese culture. It’s just interesting that the closest most Australians will get to that culture is attending a Kecak dance. Tick it off, back to the beach. But of course mass tourism has brought the much more serious issue of inequality and destruction of local culture (everywhere, not just Bali), and we sometimes have a funny way of addressing it. I saw a social media post from a woman virtue-signalling about how she’d paid 50,000 rupiah (a bit less than $5) to a Balinese woman to wash, dry, press and fold a big bag of laundry. Another person commented: “Love this idea! Helping the Balinese ppl like this!” Yet I struggle to see how lobbing spare change at locals to cleanse stains out of Bintang singlets is really the path to empowerment. What the Kecak experience gave me was a taste, and a desire to return to this incredible island, and to venture to the villages and the volcanoes inland, far from the sea demons, away from performative Bali.

Ricky is a writer and musician with a new‑found interest in Bali. Fellow columnist Fiona Scott-Norman is taking a short break.

05 AUG 2022

Fire and Water

What the Kecak experience gave me was a taste, and a desire to return to this incredible island.

Ricky

U.F…OHHHHH!

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Film

Nope

Hold on to your cowboy hats, Jordan Peele isn’t horsing around. With his new horror UFO flick, the director reunites with two of his biggest stars, Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer.

by Claire Cao @clairexinwen

Claire Cao is Small Screens Editor.

05 AUG 2022

t’s been five years since Jordan Peele’s debut feature Get Out reshaped modern horror, and its star, Daniel Kaluuya, remains surprised by Peele’s capacity for invention. “You just know that you’re gonna get an original, fresh take,” he tells me. “There were certain days on set where I was just like, What is going on with you back home? What’s in your head?” Peele, who got his start as one half of comedy duo Key & Peele, is distinctive for his genre-bending virtuosity. His films pulse with terror one second, before sliding into disarming levity: in Get Out, a villain googles her next victim while munching on Froot Loops; and in a bombastic moment of bloodshed in Us (2019), a plea for Alexa to “call the police” leads to NWA’s ‘Fuck tha Police’ blasting in surround sound. Peele’s flair for balancing these tonal swings allowed his previous flicks to resonate with audiences and critics alike. With his latest feature Nope, he’s dreaming even bigger. “Get Out was a really pressurised shoot – we did it in 23 days,” says Kaluuya, who received Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for his portrayal of a photographer who finds himself trapped in a nightmare upon visiting his white girlfriend’s family. “It’s amazing to see [Peele’s] growth as a director and see him in an environment where he’s got more command.” Actor Keke Palmer, who had previously worked on Peele’s sketch comedy, is similarly thrilled to be back. “He really helped me at that time to not be afraid to enter comedy, because I don’t think I really saw myself in that space before then. To collaborate with him now, for a longer period of time, and on a much bigger concept, was a lot of fun.” Set in the scorching reaches of Southern California, Nope follows OJ Haywood (Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Palmer), proprietors of Hollywood’s only Black-owned horse ranch. The siblings live in the shadow of their late father, working in an industry where the labour of animal wranglers is often rendered invisible. Things quickly get weird. A strange cloud looms over the mountains, and horses begin vanishing into the sky. Through the haze of moonlight, OJ spies the titanic curve of a flying saucer.

Taking cues from Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Peele masterfully builds an atmosphere of dread through a careful mystery, immersive camerawork and an unnerving soundscape of chittering and equine wailing. “Sometimes there was a wind machine, so he’d have to shout really loud to get through to you,” laughs Kaluuya. “Not only wind machine but IMAX cameras!” Palmer adds of the immense film cameras that shoot in taller, more panoramic aspect ratios. “[It was] my first time with that and they are loud.” Much of this UFO epic concerns the aspirational mythology of the American west, where vivid personalities scramble to make a name for themselves. The Haywood siblings, along with Steven Yeun (Minari) as a tragic child‑actor-turnedtheme-park-owner, see the UFO as a ticket to escape the thankless bottom rungs of their fading entertainment careers. It becomes a way for them to cement themselves – by capturing a perfect, undeniable image (what the Haywoods playfully dub “The Oprah Shot”). However, since the spacecraft was realised through computer‑generated effects, the actors on set were frequently gazing at blank expanses of sand and sky. They had to trust in Peele’s vision. “Jordan would literally talk us through every beat, especially when it came to the fact that we were looking up at something that just wasn’t there,” Palmer says.

“That’s what you’re invested in,” says Kaluuya. “It’s his slant, his perspective on the genre.” The otherworldly elements stand in contrast with the tactility of the Haywoods’ work as ranchers. Kaluuya trained in horseback riding for three weeks and discovered the quirks of each steed. (“Bradley was my guy,” he says of the horse he bonded with most. “We rolled out, we spent a lot of time together, man.”) Through this, he gained an intimate understanding of Nope’s creatures – both earthbound and extraterrestrial. Much of the joy of Nope lies in how its characters respond to the absurdity of their circumstances. The film’s title echoes OJ’s hilariously deadpan reaction to one of its most overwhelming, blood-curdling moments. Much like in real life, sometimes all you can do is shrug and crack a joke, just to get through the paralytic terrors of our current age. The challenge for the actors was to thread these extremes together. For Palmer, that meant navigating Emerald’s emotional see-sawing between snappy one-liners and visceral anxiety: “I’ve played in those areas, but not all in one movie. So, to make sure that it all made sense and that we didn’t feel like [Emerald] totally became a new person – but that she was actually growing and learning and evolving as a

It’s amazing to see his growth as a director.

person throughout the film – was the thing that I wanted to make sure felt as effortless as possible.” The vulnerability on display, particularly the prickly yet fiercely loyal bond between OJ and Emerald, is what ultimately anchors the film. Whether they’re weathering the ranch’s financial woes or paranormal phenomena, the siblings have each other’s back. This dynamic was “easy”, according to Kaluuya, who praises Palmer’s openness. “I love Daniel as well,” Palmer says of her co-star, who won the 2021 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Black Panther activist Fred Hampton in Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah. “I’d first seen him in Black Mirror and was like, ‘No, this guy AIN’T. PLAYING. AROUND. I really was just so shocked at his level of skill. He was everything that I expected and more.” “You’ve got a lot of energy now,” Kaluuya laughs. This chemistry between the two is the affectionate heart of Nope, and their relaxed back-and-forth filters through to the tail-end of our interview. “There’s a new word we’re trying to phrase called ‘siblance’,” Palmer says. “Sibling romance.” “You should put that in an Instagram caption,” Kaluuya jokes. “Siblance. It’s gonna become a thing!” NOPE IS IN CINEMAS 11 AUGUST.

The director draws a huge range of influences – spanning from Stanley Kubrick to The Twilight Zone (which Peele rebooted in 2019) – to infuse new life into familiar genre tropes. With Get Out, he delivered a classic body-snatcher thriller that managed to intricately explore the tensions of interracial dating and anti-Blackness in America. Now, he’s revitalising UFOs and alien abductions, concepts that haven’t been in vogue since The X-Files and Independence Day (1996). Since its 1950s heyday, the quintessential image of a circular spacecraft has become a retro cliché, associated with Cold War-era pulp fantasies of bobble-headed aliens. Although Peele fondly references these depictions, his take is decidedly contemporary. The more unspoiled an audience is upon entry, the better – but rest assured, every scene in Nope is deeply unexpected, featuring bloodthirsty chimps, bone‑crunching deaths and deluges of viscera from above. There’s even a metafictional twist: as we watch the characters risk their lives to film the UFO – and its enigmatic contents – in the most spectacular way possible, Peele also touches on our desires for shock, wonder and conspiracy. “I really was like, ‘Wow, how are we going to put this together? How are we gonna do this?’” Palmer muses. “We’re talking about [themes of] exploitation, we’re talking about our obsession with spectacle, we’re talking about sibling relationships. So many different things, all hodge-podged together in a way that is just so unique.”

05 AUG 2022

ACTOR DANIEL KALUUYA ON REUNITING WITH DIRECTOR JORDAN PEELE

Julia Jacklin

Music THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Pleasure Cooker Julia Jacklin has a third album under her belt, a Prague orchestra helping her out, and, most importantly, a bus.

by Lachlan Kanoniuk

Lachlan Kanoniuk is a screenwriter and critic.

t sounds so cliché, but we are a lot more complicated. I am more complicated than I thought,” confesses indie singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin, on the creation of her highly anticipated third album, Pre-Pleasure. For Jacklin, the record has felt like “20,000 years, an eternity” in the making: after all, the world has changed dramatically in the three years since her last full-length release, Crushing. While the disruptions since 2019 forced a sense of introspection for many, that space is familiar territory for Jacklin. The resonance of her second album can be attributed to a canny ability to look inward. Pre‑Pleasure continues to convey heavy emotions with disarming poise. “I’ve learned so many things. Crushing was more about the first time I discovered that you could have boundaries with people. That I deserved to have boundaries. I deserve to have people respect those boundaries,” she recalls. “Whereas this record is a bit more about understanding that it’s not that simple, unfortunately… Relationships are an ongoing

“I’m quite scatterbrained. Each song and every record I’ve made, I’ve always finished it and thought, Is this gonna make sense? As a whole? Because, you know, each song kind of feels like its own little journey, and you just kind of shove them together.” The dynamic production of Pre-Pleasure ranges from stripped-back electronic metronome on opening track ‘Lydia Wears a Cross’ – an affecting look at innocence, spirituality meeting pageantry, and the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack – to more rock-oriented moments such as ‘I Was Neon’, and on to the orchestral arrangement on the closing track ‘End of a Friendship’, which Jacklin worked on with indie composer Owen Pallett (Arcade Fire, Ed Sheeran). “It was basically me singing the melodies into my phone, then texting them to Owen Pallett,” she says. “Then the next day, I’m on a Zoom call on Route 66, at a literal Route 66 hotel, driving back to LA from Canada. I’ve never met Owen. He’s smoking on a balcony in Montreal, then this orchestra in Prague – who’ve just received the sheet music that second – [are] playing

these arrangements perfectly. They do it maybe once or twice. And then it’s done...it was a very new experience to me.” In this way, some of the songs took three minutes to write, others three years. Jacklin also continues to direct or co-direct her videos, an aspect of the music business she relishes; the demand to be perpetually online, however, is not. She brings up a YouTube comment on one of her videos: “All Julia’s music videos are just her, like, dancing down a street, walking through a field or just interacting with space,” she recalls. “And I think that that is so true… I keep thinking every album, I’ll scale it up. I’ll do these big production music videos with a crew, but it just kind of never happened. I just want to make something that adheres to the beats of the song.” Now with a tour schedule being finalised, including Europe, the thing Jacklin is looking forward to most is sleep. “This is the first time I’m ever going to tour with a full-on tour bus, where you sleep on it,” she says. “The number-one thing that ruins your life on tour is lack of sleep, so this is going to change the game for me.” PRE-PLEASURE IS OUT 26 AUGUST.

05 AUGUST 2022

conversation. If you want to have a long-term, loving, respectful relationship, you have to accept that it’s going to be this continuous process.” Unsurprisingly, Pre-Pleasure is an album of love songs stripped of sentimentality. The limits of unconditional love, the joy of romance, and the fragility of friendship are all explored with grace, tenderness and lyrical candour, sometimes heartbreakingly so. While there are moments of affecting heartache, especially when delving into the complexities of close relationships, there are also moments of triumph. “I guess for me, being able to express complicated feelings around sex and sexuality in song form is so liberating and joyful,” Jacklin says of ‘Magic’. “It’s something that I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing in the past.” Over video call from her home in Melbourne’s inner north, against a backdrop of very 70s mustard-coloured curtains, Jacklin admits there was no overarching masterplan. “I’m definitely not at the level in my career where I have this bigger picture before I start recording. The record starts appearing while I’m making it, each time I’ve done it,” she says, scoffing at one online album review that suggested she wrote Crushing with Spotify’s algorithm in mind. “I wish I was that calculating, and that smart. But I think I’m influenced by a lot of things.

PHOTO BY NICK MCKK

Each song and every record I’ve made, I’ve always finished it and thought, Is this gonna make sense?

Jo Nesbø

Books

Nesbø’s Kingdom Jo Nesbø might be considering his own mortality but there’s plenty of life yet in the leader of Nordic Noir, with 50 million books sold, and a stream of film adaptations in the pipeline. Not to mention a non‑fiction book on rock climbing.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

he fact that I’m getting closer to death makes it more interesting and the more I think about what awaits behind that door,” says Jo Nesbø, the bestselling Norwegian crime novelist, who turned 62 in March. “At a younger age, I had this silly idea that you would gain some wisdom from knowing that you were going to die, that you would have a different view on life. But as I get older, I have realised that you live as a stupid person and you die as a stupid person. There’s not that much insight to gain from getting close to death.” It’s perhaps no surprise our discussion has turned to death, a constant and central theme in his fiction. Speaking via Zoom from his home in Oslo, Nesbø goes on to describe a panic attack he had when he was in his early teens, when he anxiously woke up his father, Per, from an afternoon nap to ask him what happens when you die.

COURTESY OF BIG ISSUE NORTH . PHOTO BY GETTY

by Richard Smirke, Big Issue North, UK

“He had been in the trenches outside Leningrad during World War II, so I gathered he knew something about death. He looked at me half asleep and said ‘I think it all goes dark,’ and that was it,” recalls Nesbø, who says that he now shares the same belief. “I think that dying may be a very sad and banal thing. So I guess I’m just planning a graceful exit. That is all we can hope for.” Despite the morbid turn our conversation has taken, it must be said that Nesbø looks in fine health and says he has no desire to shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon. A keen rock climber, he proudly states that he’s “in better shape than ever”. Best known for his 12 Harry Hole novels, about the flawed, alcoholic detective Harry Hole (pronounced Hool-eh), Nesbø has sold more than 50 million copies, and been translated into 50 languages, making him the undisputed king of Nordic Noir, in no small part thanks to the film and TV versions that have followed. Yet it all happened without design.

The group continued to make music and tour even after their singer became a famous writer, his brother by his side. “The two of us being a united team of two made us really strong, but at the same time he would be, in some ways, my emotional Achilles heel,” Nesbø says. “He was my younger brother and whenever he was in trouble or his life wasn’t going well for him it would involve me. Like any older brother, you would try to fix your younger brother’s problems and when I couldn’t, it was just as frustrating for me as it was for him. Also, of course…he could annoy me immensely, pushing the right buttons.” The pandemic has meant that Nesbø hasn’t been able to travel for work as he normally would, although the writer acknowledges that he has nothing to grumble about and has remained busy. “For me, life hasn’t changed that much. I can work from my home. My band had gigs we planned to do, and they were all cancelled, so it’s been quiet.

But I can’t really complain when you look around and see all the problems it’s caused for people both economically and socially.” Last year Nesbø dropped his first short story collection, The Jealousy Man and Other Stories. This year looks just as busy. He has started writing the 13th Harry Hole novel, while work is underway on a Norwegian TV series of his novel Headhunters, which was turned into a successful movie in 2011. Film and TV adaptations of his books Midnight Sun, The Son and the Harry Hole novel The Devil’s Star are in various stages of development, while Amazon has bought the rights to The Jealousy Man collection. Sitting at the opposite end of the publishing spectrum is a forthcoming non-fiction title about rock climbing. “It will be a personal book about a very mediocre and old rock climber trying to achieve a goal in climbing which, to me, is absurd if I can make it, but in climbing history is not a big deal,” he says. “I became a writer because I wanted that kind of freedom and it would be very stupid at this point to give away that freedom and give in to what the publishing house or what the reader wants. I just try to stay true to the idea that I must do what I would like to do. There’s no organised plan or order.” THE JEALOUSY MAN AND OTHER STORIES IS OUT NOW.

“I don’t really have a plan or strategy for what I write,” he says. “The idea for a novel is always the boss.” Nesbø’s most recent standalone novel, The Kingdom, is another gripping tale. Less bloodthirsty than his Harry Hole novels, it tells the story of Roy and Carl Opgard, two brothers who become embroiled in a deadly tale of lies, deceit and murder when they try to build a spa hotel near their childhood home, bringing long-buried family secrets to the surface. It’s fiction, of course, but the central story of two brothers sharing an intense bond is one born of personal experience. “I knew that at some point I would have to write about brothers. I grew up with two brothers and my younger brother, who passed away from cancer [in 2013], him and I were very close. Like the brothers in the novel, we would share a bunk bed and he was a social, outgoing kind of person, while I [had] fewer friends and would be more the kind of guy that would read a lot.” Growing up in the fjord town of Molde, Nesbø and his younger brother, Knut, were huge football fans and both went on to play semi-professionally for their home club in Norway’s first division before torn knee ligaments ended Jo’s playing career aged 18. He joined the air force and worked as a financial analyst for several years before scoring success alongside his brother in the rock band Di Derre, who topped the Norwegian charts.

05 AUG 2022

As I get older, I have realised that you live as a stupid person and you die as a stupid person. There’s not that much insight to gain from getting close to death.

Film Reviews

Aimee Knight Film Editor @siraimeeknight

’ve spent the past month winding my way across the USA on a research trip for my book. I’m about ready to head home, but I’d be remiss not to first make a whistle stop at the Melbourne International Film Festival, which also returns home, in a way, illuminating the city’s brick‑and-mortar cinemas this month for the first time since 2019. Befittingly, one of the top tickets on my wish list is director James Benning’s The United States of America – a digital, pandemic-era update to his and Bette Gordon’s 1975 road trip turned sly 16mm survey of the so-called “cultural superpower”. Another formally inventive title I’m hoping to witness is The Afterlight by British director Charlie Shackleton (Beyond Clueless). There’s only one 35mm print in existence, so the work has a finite shelf life as eventually the ephemeral film – which is a collage of segments from extant movies, spanning the gamut of the international canon – will be lost to history, just like its cast, who’ve all passed. An eerie meditation on mortality, temporality and physical media. While I’m there, I’m also keen to see Because We Have Each Other and Petrol. They’re the respective second features from Australian directors Sari Braithwaite, whose archival riot [Censored] screened at MIFF in 2018, and Alena Lodkina, the writer-director behind the beguiling opal mining drama Strange Colours (2017). What I don’t make it to at the festival proper, which runs until 21 August, I’ll catch on MIFF Play, streaming 11-28 August. AK

PETROL HEAD: NATHALIE MORRIS

BOSCH & ROCKIT 

The latest in the Australian crime subgenre kick-started by literary hit Boy Swallows Universe, the “inspired by true events” Bosch & Rockit features blokey Bosch (Luke Hemsworth), a low-level criminal misfit, who negotiates a life of drug-dealing with parenting. After a fatal twist of events, Bosch flees town with his young son, Rockit (pro surfer Rasmus King) in tow. Pursued by corrupt cops, they head for Byron Bay on a supposed “magic holiday”. While Rockit rides the surf, Bosch cautiously watches over his shoulder and spins tall tales to protect his son from the hard truth. Ben Nott’s lustrous cinematography uses radiant coastal lighting to capture the tender moments of connection between Rockit and his soulmate Ash-Ash (Savannah La Rain), a similarly unlucky teen abandoned by both parents. As a mash-up of crime and coming-of-age, it’s tricky to identify the audience for writer-director Tyler Atkins’ feature debut. Undoubtable though is his heavy-handed message that the sea is nature’s all-healer for lost characters. FIONA VILLELLA THE PRINCESS

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU



Kristen Stewart bagged an Oscar nom this year for her pitch perfect turn as Princess Diana in Spencer, Pablo Larraín’s florid, nightmarish vision of Christmas at the Sandringham estate, 1991. But who could play Lady Di better than herself? In The Princess, director Ed Perkins draws on a vast well of archival footage to recreate her story – from the blossoming of her relationship with Prince Charles through to its bitter dissolution, her ensuing independence, and her shocking demise – as it was told in the media of the day. Where Larraín’s film sought to get under its subject’s skin, to capture something of her private self, Perkins is interested in the public figure – as documented both with and, increasingly, without her consent. The revelations offered here don’t really pertain to Diana’s character (25 years on from her death, there is little left unsaid), but rather to our own: the film is an often chilling portrait of a cultural obsession with celebrity, refracted through the princess’ wounded gaze. KEVA YORK

JUNIPER 

Sam (George Ferrier) is home reluctantly from boarding school to help care for his grandmother Ruth (Charlotte Rampling), who’s recovering from a broken leg. He holds unresolved anger for his father Robert (Marton Csokas), and feels no warmth for the matriarch marking her days by demanding gin refills from her nurse Sarah (Edith Poor). Juniper hits expected beats well enough, but the real pleasure is Rampling’s performance – by turns sharp, vicious, sage, wry. Ruth first appears on screen in a curtained room listening to the radio. In contrast to her adventurous days as a war photographer, she now prefers gloom and isolation. But as she gradually takes in the air of the garden and the rural New Zealand landscape, she opens up to Sam with what she remembers and imagines. And as they tend to Ruth’s needs, Sam and Robert clear away the brambles of their own relationship. This tender drama shows us that bitterness can be tempered by acceptance, and that listening to the past can free us from it. MIKE LIM

Small Screen Reviews

Claire Cao Small Screens Editor @clairexinwen

PAPER GIRLS  | PRIME VIDEO

FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL

 | BINGE

 | 12 AUGUST ON APPLE TV+

In the second season of this cutthroat office drama, our cast of London investment bankers are thrust back into the glittering offices of Pierpoint & Co. New variables await in a COVID-affected world: a looming merger, volatile markets and moneyed clients with fickle agendas. Industry continues to excel at moments of intensity – taut scenes on the trading floor are nail-biting, underscored by the anxious pulse of ringing phones. But too often, the show fails to maintain the pressure that electrified the first season. Frictions between the cast of young corporate hopefuls are muddied by diverging storylines, detours into contrived backstories and flat new characters. Though the web of relationships remains compelling in its study of power and ambition, there is too much artifice and too little truth, and emotional notes ring hollow. Industry looks and sounds as beautiful as ever, elevating its opulent montages of sex, drugs and glamour with a masterfully melancholic synth score. But much like the dazzling world it portrays, there’s little beneath the sleek veneer. ANNIE ZHANG

Based on a non-fiction book of the same name, this tense drama details the horrors and potentially avoidable deaths that took place at New Orleans’ Memorial Hospital, as it was isolated without power and supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Among an array of patients, doctors, family and legal investigators, Dr Anna Pou (Vera Farmiga) floats awkwardly at the centre of the show, flipping between hero and potential villain. While the series conjures deep dread in showcasing interminable conditions, it lacks clear direction. It loses its grip on probing the moral dilemmas faced in times of crisis, often feeling inconsistent: it concludes as a true crime-style exposé, after spending several episodes as an intimate, heartbreaking look at the difficult days within the hospital. Casting its themes adrift, the real tragedy at Memorial Hospital becomes blunt melodrama, while the brutality feels cruel in the overall lack of purpose. Five Days at Memorial succeeds in depicting the intensity of disaster, but leaves viewers seeking clarity, and reason, among the chaos. ANGUS MCGRATH

fter a four-year absence from our screens, Ryan Gosling returns in spy thriller The Gray Man – Netflix’s most costly feature to date (price tag: US$200 million). Gosling is Sierra Six, a CIA mercenary who goes rogue after discovering that, to nobody’s surprise, his employers are up to no good. Six must evade his former co-workers, led by moustachioed sociopath Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), punching his way through crashing planes, lavish locales and his own personal demons. This Marvel-esque action flick is stuffed with spectacle but low on substance: frantic action and whizz-bang VFX don’t make up for the schlocky storytelling. Still, the performances are fun: Evans shirks his Captain America image as a hammy villain, and nobody embodies soul-deep exhaustion quite like Gosling – his outing as the embattled Six is diverting enough, as we wait for his take on Ken in the upcoming Barbie movie. Blockbusters like The Gray Man are held together by the labour and ingenuity of those behind the scenes. For those curious about the VFX industry, head over to Disney+ for the docuseries Light & Magic. Directed by long‑time Star Wars collaborator Lawrence Kasdan, the six episodes are an accessible entry point into the wonder of both digital and practical effects, following the innovations of the George Lucas-founded studio Industrial Light & Magic. Kasdan transports us to a scrappier time, back when nobody believed Star Wars would succeed, and artists fought tooth and nail to bring now‑beloved droids and Wookiees to life. CC

05 AUG 2022

INDUSTRY: SEASON 2

JUST BE GOS

Based on the graphic novels by Saga writer Brian K Vaughn, Paper Girls is the newest addition to the “kids on bikes” 80s revival genre. This time, the roughed-up, dirty-mouthed, hockey stick-toting gang of 12-year-olds are all girls, a refreshing twist on the boy-dominated canon. The series opens on Hell Day – the day after Halloween – in 1988. On Erin Tieng’s (Riley Lai Nelet) first morning as a paper delivery girl, Erin and her fellow paper girls accidentally stumble into the crossfire of two warring, time-travelling armies. Zapped into 2019, they meet the listless Adult Erin (Ali Wong) – it’s moments like these, where the characters confront their jaded future selves, that Paper Girls is at its most compelling. However, as soon as a Pacific Rim-esque robot enters the chat, the show grows tonally confused, struggling to balance the heart with the drawn‑out stretches of action. The half-baked time travel plot is the weakest point, but what remains is still a story of badass girlhood that we’ve been starved for. A shame about the robot, though. CLAIRE WHITE

Music Reviews

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor

s Melbourne gears up for the 70th edition of the Melbourne International Film Festival (5‑21 August), here’s a spotlight on some of the great music documentaries and films screening this year. First up, indie sleaze gets the film treatment in Meet Me in the Bathroom, a retelling of the early ’aughts rock renaissance in New York, featuring plenty of skinny jeans, Brooklyn gossip and bad hair. Several films focus on musical luminaries: Ethan Coen’s anticipated Trouble in Mind, takes us through the life and times of rock’n’roll icon Jerry Lee Lewis. Nothing Compares charts the rise and implosion of Sinead O’Connor, the incredible Irish singer with an angelic voice, who caused controversy for her politics and charged performances. Moonage Daydream promises to show us Bowie as he’s never been seen, a kaleidoscopic take on the titanic artist, showing his innovative video work and featuring neverseen-before footage. Jazz legend Thelonious Monk’s legacy gets another look in Rewind & Play, featuring astounding footage from his appearance on French TV’s Jazz Portrait. And Who Killed the KLF? puts a spotlight on the 90s dance outfit’s bizarre, mysterious antics. On the local front, Age of Rage – The Australian Punk Revolution chronicles the rise of punk in the early 70s, and Pub: The Movie, looks at pub rock from the lens of St Kilda icon Fred Negro. Plus, for a live music fix, local supergroup Springtime will be performing a brand-new soundtrack to classic biopic Chopper (2000) at The Astor Theatre. IT

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

BOWIE, WOWIE!

@itrimboli

THE OTHER SIDE OF MAKE-BELIEVE INTERPOL 

The timing of The Other Side of Make-Believe compounds the paradox faced by Interpol and their early ’aughts alt-rock ilk. It’s one month shy of the 20th anniversary of landmark debut Turn on the Bright Lights (2002), yet any celebration of it means shifting focus from this new record. Or, it could compound how little has changed for a group that is stoic by virtue – an approach that has produced highlights even throughout middling-to-decent albums. Here, the snaking, full-bodied ‘Mr Credit’ best typifies the New York band’s sonic hallmarks while nudging to slight evolution, with the bonus of singer Paul Banks’ enduring ability to implant off-kilter turns of phrase: “All a part of the game”. Nervy lead single ‘Toni’ also benefits from a more ornate arrangement, Banks’ vocals elevating into a higher register. Elsewhere, tracks rest in the margins of Interpol’s legacy. Their youthful, urgent reaction to the aftermath of 9/11 has washed into listless semi-optimism. Age can imbue artists with weather-beaten intonations; Interpol isn’t there yet, but let’s give it another 20 years. LACHLAN KANONIUK

SPECIAL LIZZO

LOVE, DAMINI BURNA BOY





Lizzo’s effervescent personality, body positivity and joyous breakthrough album Cuz I Love You made her an internet sensation circa 2019. Come 2022, it’s time for Lizzo to reaffirm her status at the top of pop. Unfortunately, Special shows the singer/ rapper/flautist hasn’t exactly come prepared. Rather than a joyful resurgence, the album emits shrink-wrapped cynicism – it’s so full of empty platitudes and yas-queen catch-calls, it feels AI-generated. Special’s self-sabotage is evident from lead single ‘About Damn Time’, which maintains the disco-party energy of 2019’s ‘Juice’, with silky bass and a locked-in drum groove – but sports some terrible lyrics (“It’s bad bitch o’clock/Yeah, it’s thick-thirty). Throw in an ill-advised Coldplay sample (‘Coldplay’), a generic happy-happy title track, and the eye-rolling ‘Everybody’s Gay’, and you’re left wondering how this was the best Lizzo could do. Lacking her early work’s spark, Special plays out like songs for Ellen DeGeneres to dance to while her audience claps off-beat. DAVID JAMES YOUNG

The Nigerian singer/rapper Burna Boy is an international superstar – a self-proclaimed “African Giant”. His last foray, Twice As Tall (2020), scored a Grammy for Best Global Music Album. He sold out Madison Square Garden. But, in Love, Damini, the man born Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu delivers his most personal work, pondering life, tribulations and his own overwhelming emotions. The Afro-fusionist continues to challenge Western musical gatekeeping. The South African choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which famously elevated Paul Simon’s Graceland (1986), appears on ‘Glory’ and the title track. Plus Burna is joined by his UK Afroswing pal J Hus, Jamaica’s Popcaan and Colombian reggaeton star J Balvin. Still, Burna really shows his contemporary crossover acumen with the Ed Sheeran duet ‘For My Hand’. Less predictable is ‘Wild Dreams’ – Burna’s idealism tempered as he grimly contemplates Martin Luther King Jnr’s fate. While occasionally idiosyncratic, Love, Damini assures Burna’s cultural legacy. CYCLONE WEHNER

Book Reviews

Clare Millar Books Editor @claresmillar

FORTY NIGHTS PIROOZ JAFARI





Following on from her critically acclaimed memoir Staying (2019), Jessie Cole’s new memoir Desire: A Reckoning is a deeply moving and honest meditation on the physical and emotional responses emerging from the author’s own traumatised body as she embarks on a passionate but ultimately unstable relationship with an older, interstate lover. Through perfect prose and fearless openness, Cole explores her embodied memories of historical family trauma alongside the current ecological collapse of the home in the forest that she has always known. Her anxiety and vulnerability merge together in her new relationship in visceral ways as she tries to understand love and the desire she has for her lover. It is however, Cole’s own reckoning of selfhood in relation to home and belonging that ultimately rises with powerful intensity in this memoir. As she did with Staying, in Desire, Cole is tenderly writing herself into healing. She is giving herself the space to regenerate and grow just like the forest of her home inevitably will again. MANDY BEAUMONT

Pirooz Jafari’s debut novel Forty Nights is a story about place and connection. Jafari explores loss, young love, belonging and deep yearning for a life abruptly snatched away by war and migration. The main protagonist, Tishtar, is an immigration lawyer who specialises in refugee and family reunion cases, lives in Geelong, runs his own humble private practice in Melbourne and has roots in Iran. Yet the novel is mostly about women and girls caught in the crossfire of national and international struggles for resources and power. Jafari writes these female characters with depth and nuance, and compels the reader to journey with Tishtar on a quest that interweaves stories from and about Australia, Iran, Somalia and Sweden. A blend of magic realism, rich poetry, ancient mythology and formulaic submissions for migrant visas, Forty Nights presents many forms of story that all tell of people who hold onto family, tradition and ritual in order to reconstitute their sense of place and connection. SISTA ZAI ZANDA

NO WORDS MARYAM MASTER 

No Words, Maryam Master’s second junior fiction novel, is just as moving and tender as her first. The story explores the lives and friendships of Hero and Aria – two 12-year-old kids living in Australia. Aria doesn’t speak and he is bullied mercilessly, and Hero wishes that she could be brave enough to help put a stop to it. Beyond this deceptively simple premise, however, is a much bigger story of mental illness, political persecution, family, loss, the importance of friendship and the power of finding your voice. The story alternates between Aria and Hero’s perspectives, revealing Aria’s experience as a refugee, and Hero’s father with his mood swings. Their tween voices are so authentic that they leap off the page. Despite its serious themes, No Words is often laugh-out-loud funny. Master deploys humour perfectly to release tension without ever being flippant and the result is a thoroughly entertaining, thought-provoking story that will leave a mark on the hearts of readers of all ages. SARAH MOHAMMED

DESIRE: A RECKONING JESSIE COLE

05 AUG 2022

hat an honour to be writing my first column for The Big Issue! As Books Editor, I’m keen to feature books across all genres – including poetry collections and the occasional children’s book. I’m also excited to regularly highlight titles from small publishers. I’m hoping for this to be a space that has a little something for everyone, even if you’re new to the books pages. I’ve recently enjoyed Big Beautiful Female Theory by Eloise Grills, which is a book like no other. It’s a collection of essays – some memoir, some perhaps slightly less so – combined with inventive graphic and visual storytelling. Grills is a talented writer and artist, and it was incredibly refreshing to see the forms blend together to create something new. The essays cover everything from fatness and mental health through to art history and criticism. In book news, Jennifer Down won the 2022 Miles Franklin Award for her novel Bodies of Light. This was my absolute favourite read of last year. It kept me up a few nights in a row, unable to escape the horrific reality of Maggie’s life, following her story from growing up in foster care through to her assumed identity in adulthood. Coming up, I’m looking forward to the September launch of Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory, an anthology published by Pantera Press. The anthology features essays by Elizabeth Flux, Hasib Hourani, Lur Alghurabi and Veronica Gorrie, to name a few. CM

JENNIFER DOWN, MILES FRANKLIN WINNER

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

Here’s what we’ve all heard before about the scale of the universe: you’re a tiny dot on a tiny rock hurtling through space and you exist thanks only to a miracle of gas-based scientific spontaneity. The fact that you are stressed or your family is infuriating or your to-do list is exploding or you’re moving house and breaking up with someone and wandering about the place feeling lost and confused…it’s not great, frankly. I’m sorry, if that’s the case. No doubt these problems are eclipsing your enjoyment of other things, and making you generally miserable in a way that only the passing of time can heal. If thinking about the scope and possibility of endless galaxies comforts you – if the idea that your very valid feelings are slightly easier to process when reframed against the scale of the entire universe – well done. If, however, the very idea of this makes you itchy and cross and want to shout things, let’s remember that the new photographs of the universe are cool for a bunch of other reasons. They are so pretty. Seriously, who did the visual merchandising for this photoshoot? It’s spectacular! Have you seen Pluto? It looks like Van Gogh made it up! And I’m no scientist but I read somewhere that there might be, scientists think, a hidden sea beneath Pluto’s

icy surface that has sea life swimming about down there. I had a friend who used to finish a complaint about her life by saying, “Well, there are whole other countries I don’t even know the name of, where people speak languages I’ve never heard, so that’s nice to think about.” So imagine the sea creatures on the very Van Goghian Pluto moving about. What are they thinking? Sometimes it’s just nice to know that there are other creatures about, with other languages and cultures, and while that doesn’t change the list of things you have to do by 5pm, it does mean that somewhere, it doesn’t really matter. All this space stuff is fun, too, because scientists get to try and help us understand things. As a lifelong science ignoramus, there is nothing more fascinating to me than understanding something scientific because someone told it to me in a way that makes me want to take up aerospace engineering. Here’s to all you science experts who say things about space so that idiots like me can think stuff like Woaaaah, so it’s pretty big then? Discovery itself is a fascinating thing, too. It’s a bit like when a mate of mine broke her kneecap. Later, she looked at a photo of herself from just before the accident in disgust. “Ugh,” she said, “look at me. I have no idea what’s about to happen.” There is something so poignant in that. How swiftly the Hubble telescope was superseded by the James Webb telescope. How immediately her innocent happiness seemed shamefully naive. We do carry on like everything has been either discovered or invented already, until something new turns up. We thought we knew a lot of stuff when we landed a human on the Moon. We thought we knew a lot of stuff when smartphones were invented. But what don’t we know, that we don’t yet know we could know? What is going to change the world? What is going to make things better? We don’t know! How ludicrous is that! Public Service Announcement: your problems matter. Your life is significant just because it is. But also there’s a cosmic time machine in space taking pretty pictures, so that’s nice to think about. Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The second season of her radio series, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

emember the day recently when we all woke up to those images of other galaxies? Someone had apparently popped a new telescope up there while the rest of us were going about our daily lives and suddenly humans could see even further back through time. These photos depicted, scientists explained, entire galaxies, stars and moons that glittered and shone in the photographs, looking just like untapped possibility should look. The poor old Hubble telescope, once the belle of the ball, was suddenly a shabby embarrassment, those images now fuzzy and unfocused, a visual reminder of how ignorant we were just moments before these images were released. Public Service Announcement: space exists. Why does this concern you? Not just because it gives you something to talk about, but because you’re part of it. You. And the worst person you know and the best person you know and billions of people you will never know. As a metaphor, that’s got a lot going for it.

05 AUG 2022

Space Rocks

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home Julia Busuttil Nishimura

Ricotta and Orange Olive Oil Cake

Method Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin. Place the sugar and orange zest in a large bowl. Rub the orange zest into the sugar until it is damp and fragrant. Whisk in the eggs until combined. Add the orange juice and pour in the olive oil. Add the ricotta and whisk it all together, then gently mix in the flour until just combined. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and continue to cool on a wire rack. Once cool, dust with icing sugar if desired, then serve. The cake will keep in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days.

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

PHOTOS BY ARMELLE HABIB

250g caster sugar Zest of 2 oranges 3 eggs 100ml freshly squeezed orange juice 150ml extra-virgin olive oil 250g fresh full-fat ricotta 250g self-raising flour Pure icing sugar, for dusting (optional)

PLAN TO RECREATE THIS CAKE AT HOME? TAG US WITH YOUR CREATION! @BIGISSUEAUSTRALIA #TASTESLIKEHOME

rowing up, ingredients like ricotta and extra-virgin olive oil were essentials in our fridge and pantry. In fact, we would make our own ricotta the Maltese way by collecting sea water from the ocean near where we lived. We would bring it home in large buckets and heat it before adding the whey to make the curds. It is one of my earliest memories of being in the kitchen and I can still vividly remember the plastic baskets draining in the sink, steaming and full of curds. Sometimes we would eat the ricotta hot on crusty bread with plenty of extra-virgin olive oil and maybe some fresh tomatoes or basil. Other times it would drain a little longer until cool, then used to fill pasta or added into pasta sauces for dinner that night. And I can remember my mum scooping the curds into a large mixing bowl with eggs, sugar and some citrus. Hearing the wooden spoon beat into the bowl would always draw me into the kitchen. I loved to stand on a small wooden stool to help mix the cake batter. Maybe even win a lick of the spoon once we had smoothed it all out in the tin. Whenever I cook with ricotta it always reminds me of my childhood, surrounded by family. It connects me to home – my childhood home in South Australia and also Malta, where my family are from. This cake, using both ricotta and extra-virgin olive oil, is the type of cake my mum would make – simple yet delicious. I love its tender crumb and how it is fragrant with orange. It is lovely with a simple drizzle of icing and perfect plain or dusted with a little icing sugar. It is wonderful for afternoon tea and keeps well thanks to the extra-virgin olive oil. Feel free to substitute another citrus of your choosing for the orange. AROUND THE TABLE BY JULIA BUSUTTIL NISHIMURA IS OUT NOW.

05 AUG 2022

Serves 8

Julia says…

Ingredients

Puzzles By Lingo! by Lee Murray leemurray.id.au WATCH

Using all nine letters provided, can you answer these clues? Every answer must include the central letter. Plus, which word uses all nine letters? CLUES 5 letters Contempt Dracula’s title Itinerary Land that is nearest the sea Lightweight boat

R N A E O C T

S U

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

Each column, row and 3 x 3 box must contain all numbers 1 to 9.

6 5 3 4

3 2 9 6 7 5 1 6 8 3 7 2 4 9 5

8 6 4 7 2

8 5 4 6

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions

7 letters Act of betrayal Thrash Second totting up of votes Upper house politician

CROSSWORD

8 letters Forebear Take to mean

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9

ACROSS 1 Command 5 Matisse 9 Dissenter 10 Exams 11 Rips off 12 Imagery 13 Euro 14 Plaintiffs 16 Copper wire 19 Thus 21 Animate 22 Product 24 Total 25 Esoterica 26 Deduced 27 Trounce

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

6 letters Box (for milk) Fellow actor (hyphenated) One part of a meal Stiff undergarment Trumpet‑like instrument

by puzzler.com

DOWN 1 Cider 2 Misappropriated 3 Aperol 4 Dutiful 5 Martini 6 See 20dn 7 State of the Union 8 Essayists 13 Enchanted 15 Metallic 17 Weekend 18 Rapport 20 & 6 Come to the party 23 Trace

Word Builder

The watch that you wear on your wrist may not actually have been named that because you use it to keep an eye on the time. To find out why, though, we have to go all the way back to the first century. Watch actually comes from the same language ancestor as wake: the Old English wæccan “be awake”. By the 1300s, wake and watch had mostly gone their separate ways. Wake kept the “be awake” sense, while watch was more along the lines of “be alert to potential danger”. It wasn’t until the mid-1400s that it developed the “focus on and observe” sense that we know today. We see a clock-related noun watch pop up around 1540; specifically, an alarm‑clock. So, your watch might actually be called a watch because its ancestors woke your ancestors up in the morning!

1 Niagara Falls 2 Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca 3 Canberra 4 Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lyne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty 5 Birmingham, UK 6 b) giant ditch frog 7 Milton Dick 8 Omega 9 Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling 10 Ita Buttrose 11 Blue 12 Camels 13 Forfar, Scotland 14 Ferns 15 Diego Maradona 16 The face, it’s the cheekbone 17 Agatha Christie 18 Infinity 19 London 20 Dua Lipa

by Steve Knight

Quick Clues

THE ANSWERS FOR THE CRYPTIC AND QUICK CLUES ARE THE SAME.

(10)

14 15 18

DOWN

1 Alcoholic drink (5) 2 Stole (15) 3 Brand of alcoholic drink, orange in colour

20 22

Cryptic Clues

Solutions DOWN

1 Order, then nibble dumpling starters (7) 5 Artistic European diplomat is sent packing (7) 9 Building residents rebel (9) 10 Trials drug with Xmas pudding (5) 11 Vigorously removes fleeces (4,3) 12 I may take 50% longer to make representation (7) 13 Cash shout; it’s your turn to scull (4) 14 They bring suits made from patternless scraps

1 Shout Partizan a drink (5) 2 Models a ripped sari top after opening mink

(10)

16 Noted conductor, backing singer stuck in epic

power struggle (6,4) 19 Shut out until now (4) 21 Living in a retreat with couple (7) 22 Result for channel (7) 24 Ruin everything (5) 25 Eco-satire managed to obscure facts (9) 26 French duke indeed worked out (7) 27 Destroy counter-attack (7)

stole (15)

3 Caper, olive slice in orange drink (6) 4 Conscientious objector initially leaves

explosive fluid out (7)

5 Works in short skirt making cocktail (7) 6 See 20dn 7 Rent house to tenant if it’s a Washington

address (5,2,3,5)

8 Reportedly South Australia is promoting street

for writers (9)

13 Canned the remake of Bewitched (9) 15 16ac feature left to stop climate change (8) 17 Marijuana Ken consumed when relaxing? (7) 18 Bond left after uncovering trap (7) 20 & 6dn Agree to wake up dogs that prey (4,2,3,5) 23 Shred map (5)

SUDOKU

WORD BUILDER

05 AUG 2022

ACROSS

(6)

4 Conscientious (7) 5 Bond’s favourite cocktail (7) 6 See 20dn 7 Annual address by US President (5,2,3,5) 8 Writers (9) 13 Bewitched (9) 15 Tinny (8) 17 Days of leisure (7) 18 Affinity (7) 20 & 6dn Reach agreement (4,2,3,5) 23 Outline (5)

5 Scorn Count Route Coast Canoe 6 Carton Co-star Course Corset Cornet 7 Treason Trounce Recount Senator 8 Ancestor Construe 9 Courtesan

9 7 2 8 1 5 4 3 6

4 5 6 7 3 2 1 8 9

8 3 1 6 4 9 5 7 2

5 6 3 4 8 7 2 9 1

16 Type of electrical conductor (6,4) 19 Consequently (4) 21 Sentient (7) 22 Result (7) 24 Sum (5) 25 Highly specialised or obscure matters (9) 26 Reasoned (7) 27 Beat comprehensively (7)

Puzzle by websudoku.com

ACROSS

1 Order (7) 5 French artist (7) 9 One who objects (9) 10 Tests (5) 11 Swindles (4,3) 12 Mental or figurative representation (7) 13 Foreign currency (4) 14 People or entities who bring legal actions

2 4 8 1 9 3 6 5 7

1 9 7 5 2 6 8 4 3

3 2 4 9 6 8 7 1 5

7 8 9 2 5 1 3 6 4

6 1 5 3 7 4 9 2 8

Crossword

Click 1963

Félicette the Space Cat

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty Images

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

élicette, the tuxedo cat on the left, boldly went where no cat had gone before – into space. Some say Félicette was plucked from the streets of Paris to join the French space program in 1963, just as Laika, the first dog in space, was picked up off the streets of Moscow. More likely, however, is that she and the 13 other cats that trained for the mission were bought from a pet dealer. All were female. She was eventually chosen because she was the right weight and had acquitted herself best when subjected to g-forces and rocket noises in training (see YouTube, very cute). Félicette, however, was originally known to her carers as C341. The cats were designated numbers so that their carers would not develop an attachment. Once her adventures were public, a numerical name simply would not do, and the press dubbed her Felix the Cat, after the cartoon. The French space authorities switched her name to the feminine version – the press had misgendered her. Having undergone immobilisation training (pictured above, cats love an enclosed space, as any owner with a cardboard box can attest), Félicette was transported to the French space launch facility in Algeria. And at

8.09am on 18 October 1963 Félicette created history – blasted into space at six times the speed of sound to a height of 157 kilometres, she became the first cat in space. Her response to weightlessness and the g-forces were monitored via electrodes attached to her legs and nine implanted in her skull; her breathing was monitored by two microphones. She did not panic. Thirteen minutes after launching, Félicette touched down, and was recovered by a helicopter landing in the Sahara Desert, which found her safe and sound. Meow! France had already sent a rat into space, Hector in 1961, and would later send monkeys, as did the Soviet Union. One of them, Yerosha, partially freed himself from his constraints on his flight in 1987 (“hey, what’s this button do?”). The Russians also sent turtles, wine flies and mealworms into space, while the Americans sent rabbits, frogs, insects, fish, jellyfish and, most alarmingly, spiders, who spun webs. No cane toads. Félicette has largely been forgotten, but, thanks to a crowdfunding campaign, a likeness of her now resides at France’s International Space University, sitting atop the Earth, forever gazing up into space, where she had ventured.