The Big Issue Australia #651 – Happy Holidays!

Ed.

643

DD MMM 2021

xx.

651

10 DEC

Ed. 2021 HELEN XXX XXX and XXX GARNER ZOË FOSTER BLAKE and ULTIMATE TRIFLE

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Contents

EDITION

651

30 LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF

“I Don’t Go in for Regrets”

Lee and Matt R I NSW

Steve W and David L I WA

Writer Helen Garner on diarising, Monkey Grip, and finding a place to stand in her Letter to My Younger Self.

Haidar I NSW

34 FILM

Wes World In The French Dispatch, director Wes Anderson’s hyperkinetic abundance births his own version of France.

38 BOOKS

Kay I ACT

Craig and Vesna I Vic

10.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

by Big Issue vendors

Big Issue vendors share their end-of-year thoughts, reflections, wishes and festive feels – plus their hopes for a brighter year ahead. cover photo of David from Perth by Ross Swanborough cover typography by Kate Pullen contents photos by Ross Swanborough, Autumn Mooney, Mark Avellino and Rohan Thomson

Just Zoë You Know She might have failed children’s lit at uni, but the unstoppable Zoë Foster Blake is on to her fourth children’s book.

50 TASTES LIKE HOME

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Hearsay & 20 Questions 09 My Word 26 The Big Picture 32 Ricky

33 Fiona 52 Puzzles 44 Film Reviews 53 Crossword 45 Small Screen Reviews 54 Click 46 Music Reviews 47 Book Reviews 49 Public Service Announcement

CONTENT WARNING

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this magazine contains references to people who have died (p6-7).

A Trifle Peach Melba Celebrating layers of cream, custard, jelly and sponge...has Matt Preston got a fabulously festive dessert for you!

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

Merry and Bright

A

LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT

lot of people know me as the smiling man in Subiaco,” says our cover star David, who’s been selling The Big Issue in the Perth suburb for nigh on a decade. “‘You’re always happy,’ they say. I say, ‘You’re only as happy as you want to be, aren’t you?’”

This bumper edition will give you plenty to smile about, too, as we share our annual “Big Wish Yous”, festive messages and cracker jokes from vendors. In Big Issue tradition, these reflections look back on the year, a tough one for many. They’re a reminder of what’s truly important, a collection of hopes for 2022, and a celebration of The Big Issue community.

“The Big Issue has been a big part of my life for the last 10 years and it’s helped me enormously,” says David as we chat via Zoom. “I have met and become

friends with many people from different walks of life, and have become part of the community there in Subi. I now have the ability to talk to pretty much anyone, and in the past I was a very quiet man.”

While David says it’s been “relatively normal” in WA this year as far as work goes, he’s thinking of vendors around the country who have been doing it especially hard. This special Christmas edition provides an income boost after months of lockdowns, and a chance to reconnect with customers and community.

“I’d like to thank my favourite customer – you know who you are!” grins David. “I don’t want to mention any names, because we might upset somebody. Thank you for your support.”

Indeed! From all of us, thank you and Merry Christmas. Wishing you and yours a safe and happy holidays.

HAPPY DAYS AHEAD!

Can’t find a vendor? You can buy a Big Issue Calendar via this QR code.

04

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.

Your Say

I was surprised at how thrilled I was to see The Big Issue vendors on the street when I started back at work in the office in Melbourne. I didn’t realise how much I missed seeing them and, of course, reading The Big Issue. I was also humbled by the resilience and positivity displayed by vendors that I did meet the few times I ventured into the city between lockdowns in the past 18 months. Lastly, welcome back Garry, who sells The Big Issue at Flagstaff Station. It was great seeing you there this morning, with your smile and friendly greeting.

RENATE BEILHARZ BAYSWATER I VIC

The world is restoring itself. Luceil is back selling The Big Issue at Watson Shops, North Canberra. It adds a pleasing dimension to buying fruit and veg. She remembered my ugly face once I removed sunnies (a rare day recently in Canberra) and hat.

I am now reading about Costa and beard (Ed#645). All the best to all in The Big Issue community.

CHRISTOPHER RYAN WATSON I ACT

• 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 23 locations around the country.

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Renate wins a copy of Matt Preston’s new cookbook World of Flavour. You can check out his festive recipe for A Trifle Peach Melba on p50. 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

Kelly

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE AT CNR ELIZABETH AND LONSDALE STS, MELBOURNE

interview by Amy Hetherington photo by James Braund

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

05

10 DEC 2021

I was born in The Hague in 1957. On my 11th birthday, we landed in Perth – Mum, Dad and my two younger brothers. I did all my primary school education in Holland, and then I repeated two years in primary school to catch up to the language. But already in Holland they were teaching us English, French and German. I also speak my Dutch, and I would love to learn some languages and to go to uni.

My dad thought it was a brilliant idea to move to Perth. He had seen military action in the Dutch Indonesia of the past. And when we got to Perth, we hooked up with another Dutch couple from Indonesia – that was how we bonded with our community in Perth.

When Dad was having the time of his life, Mum was with the nuns learning to be a ward sister. Mum paid for the house, Mum put food on the table. My mum was a living saint. She also rehabilitated my dad as a side project, that’s the sort of woman that she was. Mum died very, very young, back in 79. I really tried to look after Dad. After I got my matriculation, I got a lift from a mate to Melbourne, and started work. Since 15, I’d done orderly work as Mum got me into her hospital. So I managed to get a job nursing for a while.

My schizophrenia was creeping up on me. It started to become more and more of a difficulty. I didn’t know what to do – there was no Beyond Blue in those days. But the three times that I’ve been in psychiatric care, I’ve always had a good outcome. Since 1992, I’ve had no worries because every week I’ve squared up with my doctor, and paid attention to it.

I became a qualified chef. I do provincial Italian cookery.

My signature dish is my gnocchi Parisienne – I use a choux pastry with any sauce you care to do. It’s so good man, you can’t stop.

I had two or three jobs all the time: driving for Pizza Hut, newspaper delivery, a breakfast chef job every morning for five years, and then a lot at night-time working in restaurants. I was having a bad time of it, and my psychiatrist wrote me a leave of absence from work. He said: “No cheffing, go and do something else.”

I started at The Big Issue in 2008, and I was part of a big advertising campaign – I got the chance to go on billboards across Australia, so that was really cool. When I’m selling The Big Issue, I can always get one real good meal, and I can always get books at a second-hand bookshop. From my mother I inherited a love of reading and books. I love karaoke, I love music. I bought myself a turntable, bought myself some records. And I also knit bags.

I’m just searching for a girlfriend. I’ve got my studies storted, and I’ve got my real answer to mental health. So a girlfriend is really looking a lot better.

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

turkey pardon at the White House on these two birds.

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

One of the great privileges of my life was to work with David...

His contribution to film is immeasurable. From his cheeky laugh, to that mischievous glint in his eye and effortless ease in front of the camera…his humanity is irreplaceable.

Actor Hugh Jackman is one of many to pay tribute to David Gulpilil AM, Yolngu man of the Mandhalpuyngu, and icon of the screen. Vale.

ABC I AU

“There was a person in my life at one time – we won’t say names – and they didn’t love holidays. And I was like, ‘Well you’re with the wrong person then, honey.’ You have to love Christmas.”

All Mariah Carey wants for Christmas is a fiancé with a festive spirit.

INSTYLE I US

“Homeowners have had relief through low interest rates which have made repayments sustainable for those that have mortgages, but renters never get any relief at all. Rents keep going up and unaffordability gets worse.”

Adrian Pisarski, from advocacy group National Shelter, on Australia’s 2021 Rental Affordability Index figures, which show that low-income earners are increasingly priced out of the housing market.

THE GUARDIAN I AU

06

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

THE ATLANTIC I US

“We’ve even talked about having a reunion next year.”

Nicola Townsend, manager of Tan Hill Inn in Yorkshire, UK, which just hosted 61 patrons – who’d come out for a Friday night gig – for three days after they were snowed in.

The punters had come along to see an Oasis cover band, Noasis, since redubbed Snoasis. Imagine if it were a Coldplay cover band.

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

“There is no noble house in which there are not several vaccinated persons, and many regret that they had smallpox naturally and so cannot be fashionable.”

A letter from Catherine the Great, from 1787, urging a Russian governorgeneral to get trendy and support mass immunisation against smallpox, has sold at auction – along with a portrait of the empress – for $1.77 million. She led by example, being the first person immunised in Russia.

STUFF I NZ

“Peanut Butter and Jelly were selected based on their temperament, appearance and, I suspect, vaccination status. Yes, instead of getting basted, these two turkeys are getting boosted.”

There will be no gobble-gobbling Peanut Butter and Jelly these holidays, with US President Joe Biden conferring the traditional presidential

“No, I have not been used for sportswashing because I’ve been to Saudi Arabia, and I’ve seen the changes that have taken place. Every country has done horrendous things in the past…just look at America with racism, for example, it’s just so embedded here, it’s just ugly.”

Former golfer turned businessman and golf-course designer Greg Norman, digging a hole-in-one for himself over accusations that his role promoting Saudi-financed golf tournaments is an attempt to soften the kingdom’s image.

FOXSPORTS I AU

“I remember always being funny.”

Comic legend Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles), 95, on honing his craft at the age of five in order to fend off bullies who were taller than him.

THE GUARDIAN I UK

PHOTO BY MILES ROWLAND

“We still don’t fully understand why divorce happens in birds.”

Antica Culina, a behavioural biologist at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, on the rising divorce rates among albatross. The birds typically mate for life – the odd affair aside – but divorce rates have doubled to as much as 8 per cent of late, with rising water temperatures, food scarcities and inhibited breeding causing a flap.

20 Questions

by Rachael Wallace

01 Who is the 47th captain of the

Australian men’s cricket Test team?

02 Comedian John Cleese’s dad

changed the family name by deed poll in 1923. What was it originally: a) Sidebottom, b) Cheese, c) Fawlty or d) Cockburn?

03 Where in France is the Australian

National Memorial located?

04 The world’s first test-tube baby is

now 43. What is their name?

05 If you’re born on Christmas Day,

what is your star sign?

06 Which disease is known as varicella?

07 Who was the first woman to serve as

Chancellor of Germany?

08 According to US research, between

1929 and 2018, how many babies were born mid-flight on commercial airlines: a) 52, b) 103, c) 69 or d) 74?

“I’m the guy who plays a note that makes the whole world crap their pants.”

Sax superstar Kenny G flaunts his pop culture credentials, naming his starring role in an episode of South Park as a personal highlight, noting “my kids were very proud of me”.

THE MERCURY I AU

“When you respect something as a sentient being, the sort of principles you accept for other sentient beings have to apply.”

SMITHSONIAN MAG I US

09 Who won the Michael Gudinski

Breakthrough Artist award at the recent ARIA Awards?

10 What is the name of the longest

castle in the world and where is it?

11 In Home Alone, where are the

McCallister family going on their Christmas holiday when they leave Kevin behind?

12 Who is the federal Minister for the

“While nobody wants to be the ‘sky is falling’ kind of person, we do understand these changes are the plants telling us something is not right.”

Ecologist Rebecca Forkner, from George Mason University, on how climate change has meant the appearance of autumn leaves on maple trees in the US is now a month later than it was in the 19th century.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC I US

Environment?

13 True or false? The word “heroin”

used to be trademarked.

14 Who wrote the Australian play

Travelling North?

15 What do actors Pamela Anderson,

Elizabeth Taylor and Jean-Claude Van Damme all have in common?

16 What are the names of Santa’s two

reindeer starting with a C? 17 Which country is home to the

world’s biggest manufacture of zippers, YKK? 18 In what year did Ronald McDonald

“Everybody is happy with ice cream.”

Sipho Mtshail, who has been selling soft-serve ice cream from his van in Soweto, South Africa, from “Monday to Monday” for 45 years.

AFRICA NEWS I CD

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

make his first appearance as the mascot for McDonald’s?

19 Who is the tennis player alleging

sexual abuse at the hands of the former Chinese vice-premier?

20 How many of his own songs did

Elvis Presley write?

ANSWERS ON PAGE 52

10 DEC 2021

THE GUARDIAN I UK

Jonathan Birch, lead author of a UK report to government, has found that lobsters, crabs and octopuses are sentient beings, which will win them protection from inhumane slaughter, granting them the same rights as vertebrates.

07

“We should all be trying to enjoy Woman: “You the Christmas weren’t listening.” ahead of us [but] Her friend: “Sorry, for what it’s I was creating a worth, I don’t disaster in my head.” think there should be much Overheard by Jane in Castlemaine, Vic. snogging under the mistletoe.”

Thérèse Coffey, Britain’s work and pensions secretary, says there’s no telling COVID to kiss off.

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Tracy Peacock @teepee_

U

nder my parents’ Christmas tree there’s a bubblegum pink cardboard box with an ill-fitting lid. Two similar bulging boxes sit alongside it, neatly marked with the names of my younger siblings.

Christmas is filled with tradition and nostalgia in our family. Around 1 December the grandchildren help Mum and Dad decorate their aging tree. On Christmas morning there’s always a glass of bubbles and Michael Bublé crooning in the background as we open our presents. But a couple of years ago a new tradition began in our family – Mum’s memory boxes. At least, that’s what I’m calling them.

She’s already gifted to us an assortment of baby teeth, ABBA badges, primary school artwork, football card collections, wedding cake decorations, cat’s eye marbles, school sewing projects, baby books and university graduation programs. There’s never any chronological order or theme to her choices. Mum has hung onto these objects for decades. She insists they’re all just “clutter”, but actually, Mum is the saviour of our past selves.

Now, as I drag the pink box from under the tree to the sofa, I wonder what will be in there this year. Slowly removing the lid, I discover a plastic ruler decorated with photos of tourist attractions in Ballarat. I recall that family holiday when the five of us flew TAA from Perth to magical Melbourne. The sky was slate coloured the day we took a bus trip to Ballarat and Sovereign Hill. I was wearing brown jeans, a yellow and white patterned long‑sleeve nylon top and a brown parka with orange lining.

Peppering my childhood recollections are images of clothing Mum spent countless hours making for me on her Singer sewing machine: the funky cream, blue and green flowered kaftan that I wore to a family Christmas party; the pink floral dress with a shirred bodice that made a splash at a primary school friend’s birthday.

There’s a bunch of things that I remember without much effort, like my wedding and the birth of my two sons. There’s the terrible time my cat nearly died from eating rat poison in 1972; the night I went to my first concert with my dad and belted out ‘I Am Woman’ along with Helen Reddy in 1973; the time spent drooling over pop star Mark Holden’s autograph in 1976; and being

starstruck at seeing Sophia Loren on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989.

Why do I remember these things? Is it because of the emotions attached to them?

I remember the trip to Ballarat but not this cheap plastic ruler. I place it on the sofa next to me and continue my excavation into the past. There’s a small plastic bag filled with postcards, cloth badges and strips of film negatives. I slide a strip out of its opaque sleeve and hold it up to the morning light. The images I took all those years ago are indistinguishable landscapes.

Digging in again, I pull out a stack of old schoolbooks.

One has a torn grey cover labelled My Story Book.

Mum’s written “Grade 2?” on the cover. According to the book, I wanted a white poodle. I visited my nana’s house. I played hopscotch at lunch time. I went to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs during the school holidays.

They say that writing things down helps us to remember, but sadly I can only remember two of these four stories – playing hopscotch and visiting my nana – probably because these happened regularly. I scan the next few pages covered in my thick pencil printing.

Here’s my seven-year-old self, writing and drawing about the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.

“Last Wednesday three men were going to the moon and two men went on the moon and when they got out they got some rocks.”

Now my mind is travelling back to my Year 2 classroom. I’m sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor with my classmates watching the TV. “Keep still and stop fidgeting everybody,” the teacher says. She’s brought in her own black-and-white telly so we can all witness the wonder of Neil Armstrong’s moon walk.

Sometimes I’m baffled by the memory boxes and their ordinary contents. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’m peering into someone else’s life. But I’m always grateful to Mum for keeping the everyday alive.

And what about the plastic tubs in my attic? Without realising it, I’ve been constructing my own memory boxes for my two adult sons. The tubs are filled with baby books, holiday souvenirs, school reports, baby clothes, drawings, birthday cards, footy cards, Pokémon cards and CDs. What will they think of these unexceptional items?

It’s not time for me to declutter yet but when it is, I’ll have them ready.

Tracy Peacock is a non-fiction writer based in Perth.

9

Every Christmas Tracy Peacock pours the bubbles, cranks the Bublé and unpacks a box of memories.

10 DEC 2021

Taking Stockings

Big Issue vendors from every corner of the country share festive memories, reflections, and ho-ho-hopes for the new year ahead, as we wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

My life is better than ever this year, because I have gone on a long journey and I am living

me purpose, identity and a

and waking up to my gifts

positive future. David Hwl Unley,

things. Ruth R James Place

under the tree. This year, I’m

Haigh’s & The Body Shop, CBD

looking forward to seeing all my

The best thing for me this

Merry Christmas, Happy New

according to my values. When I was young and my grandmother

Enjoy. Hope all your wishes

was alive, we had family

come true. Brian W Palace

grandchildren together. Debbie Zuma’s, Hungry Jack’s & The Body Shop, CBD

I moved to a new house at St

reunions at her house with

Cinema, Glenelg

more than 15 people. We used

Merry Christmas Big Issue! It

to eat funchoza, a secret recipe

hasn’t been an easy year selling

of Russian and Chinese origin.

The Big Issue, but one thing that

It’s a beautiful noodle dish. This

keeps me chipper is a Friday

year I am looking forward to

morning customer who always

having Christmas with my best

tips and is always in a good

friend and my mum. I have no

mood. I do appreciate it. I wish

expectations, but I think it will

all my customers and everyone

be fun. Simon A Semaphore

a Merry Christmas and a Happy

My big wish: I wish for a

New Year. Daniel K CBD

happier, positive and better

I’m a proud dad – my six kids

my kids, when they were little,

2022 for everyone after a second

are growing up fast. I’m happy

and waking up to the morning

2021 is over, looking forward to

and going to the Christmas tree.

separation of families. I hope 2022 will be brighter, better and things will work out for all.

Cindy C Blackwood, Goodwood & Adelaide Showground Farmers Market THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

going to my Nana’s and Pappa’s,

and receiving love, not material

Year. Don’t drink or drug drive.

year of lockdowns, sadness and

10

thing about Christmas is giving

I appreciate the friendships I have made through working at The Big Issue. I love talking

2022 – and happy I get to pat all the dogs my customers have.

Garfield Norwood

In 2022 I hope I am well enough to stay out of hospital. I love working at The Big Issue as I meet lots of people. Claudett The Body Shop, CBD

Peters, closer to town – that’s been a good move for me. I love getting out and communicating with people, learning the place and my surrounds, just talking to people and my customers.

One customer bought a mat for my dog, Ted, which was so kind.

I don’t know what I’ll do for Christmas this year, but one of my favourite memories is with

Susan S The Body Shop, Hungry Jack’s, Cibos on Grenfell & King William St

Wishing everyone to be more successful in 2022. I hope it is a better year for everyone. I would like to thank every one of my

year was to finally get my new wheelchair. In 2022 I plan to keep working hard.

My customers call me Mr September because I was in this year’s calendar. I love meeting different people. The Big Issue helps me do this. I am looking forward to catching up with family this Christmas. Michael L James Place & The Body Shop, CBD

I’m starting to sell the calendars again and I have already sold a few of them. One of my customers, Daniel, gave me a $50 donation. The best thing about doing The Big Issue has been doing Goodwood on a Monday. It has been a good pitch to do. I would like to go to Melbourne again to visit my sister. I hope I see my sister.

Wayne A The Body Shop, CBD

customers for buying magazines

The highlight for me this year

and calendars. I hope Christmas

was supporting my beloved

to people in Rundle Mall. A

This year, my son got married.

brings good luck and good

Port Power. I have barracked for

customer bought my dog Fifi

It was beautiful and I was happy

wishes. The Big Issue helps me

Port Power for five years. I am

some Schmackos and Fifi

it got in the magazine. I turned

to keep meeting new people and

having Christmas at home this

barked “thank you”. Merry

50. My favourite Christmas

it gives me a sense of belonging.

year with my carer. I am also

Christmas everyone. The best

memory is when I was young,

The Big Issue community gives

looking forward to The Big Issue

illustrations by Grace Lee

South Australia

SOUTH AUSTRALIA TOP ROW: Erica , Debbie, Ashle y, Roger, Wayne A, Brian W, Kevin MIDDLE ROW: Nicky, Michael L, C, Mark M, David HWL Vernon, Ron K BOTTOM ROW: Matt , Daniel K, Simon A, Simon G, Ruth and Fifi, Rhys

Lincoln. I have been selling The Big Issue for four years and Christmas party in Hindmarsh

enjoy meeting new people and

Square. I love meeting people

other vendors. Ron K Pirie St

when I’m out selling The Big Issue. I sometimes have had selfies with customers, which gives them a big smile. Nicky C Rundle St

happened to me this year is that I have been able to save money – selling The Big Issue has really helped. I’m really looking

My best memories are spending

forward to spending Christmas

Christmas with family at Victor

with my family and friends, and

Harbor. I am looking forward

looking forward to watching

to this Christmas, as well.

my beloved Port Power playing

In 2022, it would be nice to

footy. I have barracked for Port

meet someone special and to

for all of my life. I love working

travel. I’d love to go to the USA,

for The Big Issue because I get

especially LA and New York. It

to meet really nice people and

would be amazing to see the LA

to make and save some money.

Lakers play, plus sightseeing

Some customers buy me a

and shopping. Selling The Big

coffee, which is really nice on a

Issue gets me up and out of the

cold day. Mark M O’Connell St,

house, and I love making extra

North Adelaide

money. My customers are great.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Rhys V Hungry Jack’s & Zuma’s, CBD PHOTO BY NAT ROGERS

The best thing that has

A highlight for me this year is selling The Big Issue and

Issue, some of my customers in Stirling like to have a cuppa with me. It’s nice to be noticed and have that level of connection.

Vernon B Stirling, Mt Barker & Adelaide Arcade

Thank you, customers, for supporting me this year. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2022. I hope it will be a better one for all of us.

Please buy the Christmas mag and calendar because I am in the calendar – have a look at November 2022. The calendars are $20 and the mags are $9 – altogether it’s $29. Thank you!

Kerry-Anne The Body Shop, Adelaide Arcade

COVID. Reconnecting with my

first destination: Auckland, New

classmates again was great.

Zealand. I’d like to do a Lord of

Selling The Big Issue supports

the Rings tour. Selling The Big

was a kid and I’m feeling pretty rusty, but it’s fun. Selling The Big Issue has been good too! I get to meet new people and make a bit of money. Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, and stay COVID safe. Mick Myer Bridge

I want to thank all my customers, and especially the ones that supported me this year since my mum passed away. Jarran Hampton Rd,

while I’m working. It’s even better at Christmastime because it’s busy and the atmosphere is great. Another good thing I’ve done this year is started going to events for hearing-impaired

birthday. Especially to see the

2022 I would like to travel. First

haven’t played cricket since I

to socialise and chat to people

video for The Big Issue’s 25th

which was stopped due to

an integrated cricket team. I

Farmers Market this year. I get

going to Melbourne to be in the

(I am an aircraft enthusiast). In

this year has been joining

I’ve loved working at the

that happened this year was

re-joining my schooling,

One of the best things about

Fremantle

To be honest, my favourite thing

old Qantas plane from the 70s

Western Australia

people at a lawn bowls club. I’m Q: What did Santa say when he ran over Rudolph?

A: D’oh, a Deer!

MARCUS SYDNEY

going to keep going in 2022 and I’m going to learn Auslan. A big thank you to my friends and customers for supporting me.

Happy Christmas! Sean Stirling Farmers Market

10 DEC 2021

staying with my family in Port

11

my schooling, travelling and

Every Friday, there’s a truck

have been very welcoming! Bill

the year was the birthday party

with lots of foods, fruits and

Claremont Quarter

I had at my house and everyone

vegies donated from SecondBite

My highlight of the year was

supermarket to the shelter where I live, so this year I bought a food-dehydrator to minimise the waste and increase my food

Q: What did Santa say on Christmas night?

A: Time to hit the sack!

JACKIE PERTH

store. I end up drying mostly fruits like bananas, apples, oranges and herbs, and I give away some to my customers and staff to enjoy. It’s 14 hours of work. My wish and prayer is

Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. Hope 2022 is a better year; let’s all get vaccinated. Jason Angelo St Working for The Big Issue is

Issue staff will have a successful

great. I managed to save a lot of

all. Pat L Her Majesty’s Theatre 2021 was a good year as I got to play the Special Olympics States Games for basketball, and I got two silver medals. Next year I am looking forward to spending more time with my two boys. I am hoping we will see the end of COVID and that I make the national team and get to travel to Tasmania. Kellee Enex 100, Hay St

at an exhibition. I’m looking forward to spending Christmas with my family and hopefully Santa is putting the Xena Warrior

that all my customers and Big recovery year in 2022. Love you

having my Spider-Man drawing

money last year and this year I managed to go on a seven-day holiday to Broome with my 22-year-old daughter Nakita, which we both enjoyed, thanks to all our customers who bought mags and calendars. So wishing

Princess box set under the Christmas tree! Merry Christmas everyone! Josh “Spider-Man” South Fremantle

Coming back to The Big Issue after a very long break (eight years I think) has been such a good thing. I’m out of the house and have gone from feeling disconnected from the world to having customers, local business owners and other friendly folk saying hello and asking how

all my customers and Big Issue

I am. It gives me such a good

staff a very Merry Christmas and

feeling to know that people care

a Happy New Year. Jackie Apple

how I am. My plan for 2022 is

Store & Arts Bridge

to keep it going because the

It’s been a tough 12 months, so I want to thank my customers

connected feeling makes every week better. I wish everybody a happy Christmas, and the

Thanks to everyone that

for their support. There have

supports The Big Issue. I

been some positives though. I

have had a great year – one

saw some old friends I haven’t

highlight was my fiance and I

caught up with for years, and

winning silver medals at our

I have loved working a new

This year I turned 40! One of

State Basketball match. Merry

spot in Claremont. The people

my favourite memories from

chance to do something they’ve wanted to do for a while. Tim

12

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Leederville

WESTERN AUSTRALIA K, Ryan U, Kaia, Ron E, Simon TOP ROW: Chad, Pat L, Jason L, Jackie G, Mick H, Kelle e T, BOTTOM ROW: Peter S, David C David B, Timothy G, Steve W, Kim

sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.

I’m really looking forward to spending time with my sister and niece this Christmas because I love giving them gifts. I’m also excited to help Mum put up the Christmas tree and decorate it. I hope all my customers have a wonderful Christmas! Eileen R Applecross 2021 has been a tough year, so I just want to thank all my customers who have helped me throughout the year. A special thanks to the Lion & Jaguar Cafe in Subiaco, who are always looking after me, and all the people at East Perth TAFE. Wishing you all a safe and happy Christmas and New Year. Brett East Perth

It’s great that we are not locked down, we can get outside and see our customers. This is a happy time of year for me as I’m looking forward to the New Year and our borders opening.

Then we can travel again.

Hope all my customers have a great Christmas, thanks for all your support. Ron His Majesty’s Theatre

Last year I got my housemate Jenny to sign up to sell The Big Issue. I like that she enjoys it very much and it’s great to talk about the day we’ve had in the evening.

My customers have been great too. I really appreciate it when they bring me a coffee, but also just when they come up and ask how my day is. I hope to take a holiday in 2022 to somewhere in Australia. Maura Leederville IGA

I can go out and work, and I like getting presents of course. Ryan Arts Bridge

“Ho Ho Ho!” said Santa. “I seem to have landed Down Under, in a swimming pool. Fortunately, I wore my bathers. Let’s see what these good folks would like for Christmas… You over there.

“Me?” asks David L. “I’d like less stomach and more hair.” “Now see here,” replied Santa, “I can’t stomach these extra-large requests.” You’ll never guess what Big Issue vendor Jackie G asked for Christmas: “Hey

Q: Which of Santa’s reindeer has the worst manners?

A: Rude-olph!

ANNE-MARIE SYDNEY

Santa, I would like one duck, one chicken and one turkey.”

Santa said not a problem, while wondering why on Earth she’d

OUR COVER STAR!

In 2022 I wish for peace for all humankind. But, realistically I hope to travel and reconnect with family and friends. I need to focus on my health and spend more quality me time. Christmas wishes to all the vendors around the country, especially those in the eastern states who have been doing it hard.

David B Subiaco Post Office

need three birds for Christmas.

2021 has been a little up and down but the absolute best thing was running into my ex-partner after three-and-a-half years and rekindling our spark that never really died! We have always been friends, but love wins in the end.

I am just really happy! Jenny

Anyway, Santa took a trip to a

friend Chris and his family. I

Hi to all the movers and groovers

farm two hours from the city. He

hope I can get new customers

out there in Busselton, hope

picked up a duck, a chicken and

in 2022, and hopefully all my

you are all happy, happy, happy!

a turkey and brought them back

usual ones are still supporting

Remember everyone, you are

in a sack. Santa said to Jackie

me. I want to thank all of them.

too cool for school!

G, “Have a magical Christmas. I

Steve W Elizabeth Quay

Busselton

Season’s greetings to all Big Issue

Season’s greetings to all Big Issue

Good Grocer, Leederville

she said. Santa replied, “Clearly

readers, vendors and supporters.

vendors and customers. Hasn’t

Wishing everyone the best start

it come at the speed of light

for Christmas and a Happy New

again? A happy and prosperous

Year: new life, health, wealth and

New Year to everyone. Kathy A

happiness. And a special hello

Busselton

to my grandchildren Tiarnah,

It’s that time of year,

PHOTOS BY ROSS SWANBOROUGH

Court

I want everyone to have a good year and stay healthy. I hope everyone has a rockin’ New Year! David W Brass Monkey,

🤘

you said one duck, one chicken, one turkey.” “Yes, but I wanted them from Coles, not three live birds.” Santa said, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Well, it’s a Ho Ho Ho from Santa. Back to the pool with everyone. Have a wonderful

Iseah, Cheyannah, Kelvin and Kaliesha. Lynette Perth CBD

Christmastime is here. “Be kind to one another,” as PM ScoMo

and safe Christmas, and a Happy

I hope more people get the

said. Because kindness always

New Year for 2022. David L Myer

COVID vax and that people

wins. Be happy and enjoy your

Bridge

stop dying. I’ve had some

family. Christmas is a time of

I’d like to thank everyone who

medical problems this year, but

happiness and reconciliation.

stops for a chat, whether they

I am getting better and feeling

Leave behind the stress and

buy the magazine or not. Talking

healthier. Wishing everyone a

worries of minds confounded.

to passers-by is a favourite part

Merry Christmas and a brilliant

Thank you to the friendly Big

of the job. Hope you all have a

New Year. Ray Subiaco

Issue staff for the delicious

great Christmas and New Year.

One of the best parts of working

Kaia Royal Perth Hospital

at The Big Issue this year has

Merry Christmas to all my

been convincing one of my best

customers. Let’s hope the New

friends to come back to sell. It’s

burgers and toasties we are fed before we work. Many thanks to my customers, with whom I like to chat. Devo Perth CBD

Year is good and that we can

great to see Tim making money

To all my valued Big Issue

Northbridge

all get back to normal soon.

customers, thank you for

We got two new puppies this year, Shyle the labrador and Mitch the kelpie – that was the highlight of the year. Christmas is not my favourite time of the year because sports stop. Luckily,

Maria Perth Underground Train Station

and doing so well – we even tried team selling. He sold one, then I

your support over the last few

sold one. That was before he got

months. Merry Christmas and a

I loved having the AFL grand

his tap-and-go machine when

Happy New Year. Have a better

final in Perth this year. I’m a big

he graduated, so now we only

year in 2022 so we can get as

sometimes work together. Sarah

close to normal as possible

Fremantle & East Perth

again. Owen BHP Dome

❤️

footy fan. I’m looking forward to spending Christmas with my

10 DEC 2021

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a very joyous New Year. Sorry for not working much this year, but I have had a lot going on.

I moved house and am enjoying the peace and quiet. I am looking forward to 2022 to see what the New Year holds. Caroline London

mortified. “I didn’t ask for this,”

13

This year I’m pretty happy as I sold five or six of my paintings, and I was in a group exhibition where I had a Chrissy Amphlett portrait. Merry Christmas everyone! Tony Perth City Farm

better be off now.” Jackie G was

😎 Brett A

14

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

lots of cheer. But what about the

support. Merry Christmas and a happy start to the New Year everyone! Don Platform Markets,

homeless and disadvantaged

Geraldton

around the world? Let’s sit

My highlight at the end of 2021 is that I bumped into the Lord Mayor of Perth and had a photo taken with him. Christmas will be exciting this year and I will take a few days off, because my great-nephew just turned one and started walking. I’m looking forward to spending Christmas with him. Shelley Cnr St Georges

Christmas is a time for giving

rights violations and the death

and sharing. In December 2013

of innocent people. I got to

I gave my dog one of the best

know some amazing folks from

Christmas presents ever, by

all parts of the country. Unlike

rescuing him from a shelter. I

others, I wasn’t arrested for

found the love of my life, my

non-violent protest. Most of us

dog. His name is Pinky. He’s a

felt energised, empowered and

Bull Arab and he’s nine years old.

encouraged by the support our

Dogs have always been a big part

community spirit provided.

of my life. I’ve had dogs since I

I’m still surprised that only a

Tce & William St

was four years old. He stays at

few people know how many

home when I’m working. I leave

arms producers are around

the fan and the TV on for him. I

Brisbane. And a bit sad that

go to the West End markets and

our efforts haven’t yet stopped

buy him treats: kangaroo tails,

another horror show next year

chicken and beef jerky, good

– Land Forces will return to

quality stuff from the stall that

Brisbane next October. War is

sells gourmet pet food. I usually

the preferred choice of cowards;

and my partner over Christmas

go to the Wesley Mission for

waging peace takes courage.

and hope everybody else gets to

Christmas. He doesn’t come with

Standing up for what I believe

do the same. I wish everyone a

me. Tony G Brisbane

is right stood out for me this

back and remember those less fortunate than us. Have a great Christmas, try kindness and happiness now and next year.

Merry Christmas. Kim Fremantle Markets

Q: Why was the turkey in the pop group?

A: Because he was the only one with the drumsticks!

NICKY C ADELAIDE

I am looking forward to spending time with my family

cool Christmas.

Forrest Place

I can’t wait for Christmas. I’m excited to spend time with my nieces and nephews, and the rest of my family. I hope everyone has an awesome Christmas.

Emma Cnr Hay & William Sts

😎 Keith Cactus,

farm. Now that they’ve passed away, it might mean lunch with friends or a gospel meeting at the Italian Club if it’s on a Sunday. Sometimes I just relax at home. I want to say thank you to everyone for supporting me – especially the lovely people at The Body Shop. I hope to keep selling magazines in 2022, lots of them (hopefully). I hope it’s a great year for everyone. Bevan Bunbury

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our customers.

I love working at The Big Issue. I get to meet lots of interesting people and the street entertainers on the streets of Perth. Phil David Jones, Hay St

of resistance to make some

me able to think clearly again.

noise about taxpayer money

John (Stew) Sandgate & Nundah Markets

being wasted on companies

This Christmas is looking more promising. Because of high

Christmas used to mean pork roast with Mum and Dad on our

and New Year. You all make

vaccination rates, I’m going

Queensland

down to Sydney to visit my sister, Judith! Christmas 2020 fell into

making a killing out of human

year, and created some lasting memories and connections.

Thank you for supporting a magazine actually helping people in need. I wish all of you a peaceful Christmastime, and

I was at the Sandgate Woolies

a heap – I had a flight booked to

check-out during a lockdown.

Sydney to visit my sister that I

I was about to pay for my

had to cancel at the last minute.

shopping when a customer

Next year I’m planning to go to

In July this year I had a heart

suddenly came up to me with

Darwin and Kakadu National

attack that put me in hospital,

her card and paid for me. I was

Park. I had flights booked in

but it ended up almost being

so surprised, I nearly passed

2020 and 2021, but they got

a good thing. The doctors said

out, absolutely unreal. Yes, my

cancelled cos of lockdowns.

I wouldn’t make it through

Eddie D Sherwood, Milton Markets & Indooroopilly

another heart attack, so I had

because my customers are the

The best thing about this year

another pack of smokes. I started

most important thing in my

was being able to keep working.

eating a bit healthier, and I get

life. They’re always kind. I’ve

I feel lucky that I could sell

some exercise in. I’m already

never mixed much with anyone,

The Big Issue here when other

feeling the benefits, walking up

but I’ve started to mingle with

states were in lockdown. Ian T

hills isn’t so hard anymore, and

my customers again. The local

Coorparoo

my daily smokes have stopped

jeweller in Sandgate gives me a

I had the most exciting time

customers, they make my day.

I keep on selling the magazine

battery for my watch. And the local fruit and vegetable store are

I love working at the platform

very kind – they give me cheaper

markets up here in Geraldton.

vegetables. At Christmas I’ll be

The people are friendly, I get

talking to my family, who are

provided with a free spot to sell

overseas, on the phone – family

and even get a free coffee and

that I have not seen for a long

something to eat some days.

time. To the people at The

I would like to thank the stall

Big Issue office and the other

holders and customers for their

vendors, have a lovely Christmas

this year by helping out with a festival. I know some peace activists. When I heard that Brisbane was about to run an arms expo, I happily committed

a Happy New Year. Lenny G Avid Reader Bookshop

to quit smoking. I never bought

costing me half my pension. I’m excited for next year, I recently got a new bike, and I’m hoping to ride more and get healthier and healthier. Dennis M Southbank Busway

my time to spread the message

This year I’d been looking for a

that arms dealers aren’t welcome

suitable place to live, with more

in our neighbourhood. So I

access. Where I was living had

joined more than 200 people in

16 steps and I’ve got issues trying

a peaceful yet powerful festival

to walk up the stairs. Last week

10 DEC 2021

spending money and spreading

15

Hey all, it’s Christmas again,

I moved into my new place,

my cousins, because she recently

in Toowong and she came back

shopping. Next year my goal is to

which is on the ground floor. Bric

had a baby girl. This year’s been

with a drink for me. Cards are

go one better in the state finals

Housing got me the place. It’s

good: I got to join The Big Issue

cheap, so I don’t mind giving

for pool. This year I came second

bigger than where I was. There’s

and I’ve enjoyed the interaction

them out. I’m looking forward to

in the Queensland single state

a little courtyard out the front,

with other people – it’s been a

visiting the coast over Christmas.

titles. Next year I’m working

which is just mine. It’s only two

big step. I finally got to settle

I like taking the tram from

myself up to come first. At

streets from New Farm Park. It’s

into a place that I like. It’s a nice

Helensvale to Surfers Paradise.

Christmastime, all the vendors

got a proper oven and stovetop,

studio apartment in the valley.

On Christmas Day I’ll go to mass,

we’ve lost over the years are all

so I can start doing a lot more

Naomi Broadway

then I’ll go to some charity for

in my heart. If I go to church, I

lunch. I’m also looking forward

light a candle for them to show

to watching a movie, taking

my respect. I usually spend

photos, having the time to do

Christmas Day with my partner’s

that. I’m grateful that I have a

family. We eat together and open

roof over my head and a job with

presents. Then we talk about

The Big Issue. People are kind. I

what the next year is going to be

hope we can look forward to an

like. Dom M Commonwealth Bank

optimistic future and that we can

& Broadway

cooking. I love cooking cakes and muffins. I want to start cooking roasts. At Christmas I’m hoping to go to Gatton for a week, to see a friend I haven’t seen in a while. Next year I’m hoping things go a lot smoother than this year. I’ve had a pretty rough year. Rodney O Medibank, CBD

This year I started losing weight and I feel good about myself again. I’ve stopped smoking and drinking alcohol. I’m drinking kombucha instead and eating less carbs. Next year I want to go on more camps, hopefully I’ll meet new people and make some friends. I’d like to be friends with people who enjoy a

get in control of the pandemic and have fun. Ted J Toowoong, Avid Reader & Queens Plaza

I feel that world peace is the best thing a person can wish for. Therefore, this year and

For 2022 I wish that children live

good coffee shop, going for walks

more safely and that education,

and watching movies. I want to

This year has been pretty cruisy

all other years I wish for, and

health and income distribution

keep selling The Big Issue too.

due to COVID. Since I’ve been

encourage others to wish for,

is fair. That the wars are over,

Cameron O Nobby Beach & Palm Beach Markets, Gold Coast

selling The Big Issue in Brisbane,

world peace. Ben T Woolworths

I’ve been to Cairns, Townsville,

Metro, George St

good and conscientious people.

I think it’s important that we

Mount Isa, Rockhampton,

I’ll be going to Mooloolabah on

Adnan Coorparoo & Paddington Central

have time for ourselves, alone

Longreach and Charleville. I

Christmas Eve and I’ll stay up

time, to remember what has

want to spend time with friends

there two nights with my family.

This Christmas I’m spending

happened this year. People don’t

and family back in Melbourne

We’ll have a BBQ on Christmas

time with family. Last year we

like dramas, but dramas are part

– I’m hoping to get back there

Day and we’ll be doing a Secret

went to the Redland Bay Hotel,

of learning. Sometimes things

for Christmas. Then I’ll do some

Santa with a limit of $20 a

it’s got views of the bay and

are stressful, and you need time

more travel out west. Andrew C

present. I’m buying for my

everything. This year we’re

to think. Instead of saying it’s

South Brisbane Station

cousin Maria, who is a massive

having lunch at Mum’s with my

painful, ask “What can I learn

Everybody’s back in town now

Star Trek fan, so, I’ll have a look

mum’s partner and my son. I’m

from it?” I give out Christmas

and it’s starting to pick up. We’ve

at a Star Trek-themed present

spending Boxing Day with my

cards to people who are having a

got all the lovely Christmas

for her. In the words of Captain

extended family. I’m especially

hard day, to brighten their day. I

statues up in Queen Street Mall

Picard, “Make it so number one.”

looking forward to seeing one of

gave someone a Christmas card

and people are going Christmas

Brett C Goodwill Bridge

and all countries are ruled by

So many people have been kind to me this year. For example, a lovely man called Andrew who shouts me a coffee every Monday: I want to thank him for his kindness. A relative who was really kind to me and gave us a car as a wedding present: I’m thankful that I can drive around.

This Christmas, I’m going to the Sunshine Coast for four days.

I’m going to the beach with my family and my wife. Michael W Cnr Charlotte & Alberts Sts

I’m going to Mum’s for Christmas Day. The whole family will be there: nieces and nephews, my QUEENSLAND , Adnan, Andrew, Dom, Ian TOP ROW: Amanda, Tallis, Ted, Craig, Dennis Lenny, John (Stew) BOTTOM ROW: Sarina , Rodney, Naomi, Tony,

sisters and possibly my brother.

I’m looking forward to ripping my present open. We do a Secret

Santa, which involves picking a number and getting the present with that number on it. When we pick our present, if we don’t like it, we can swap it for another present that another person has already opened. So it’s better to pick a high number so you get a pick of the presents. Glenn

CANBERRA Kim B, Phillip R, Kay B, Genis e T, Kate D, Randy B, Mia G, Grant W

Victory Hotel

Welcome back everyone! The

love going to work and seeing

best thing that happened to

you all. Randy Mawson Shops &

me this year was having my

Manuka Shops

vendor profile in Ed#648 of

I would like to wish the whole

the magazine. I have sold more

of Canberra a Merry Christmas, and stay COVID safe! Murray Jamison

The best thing about working at The Big Issue is that you get to meet lots and lots of people.

I also like going to the magazine launches every fortnight. I like stirring up staff, but not the other Big Issue vendors. Other vendors don’t always understand my sense of humour! To all my customers: whoever wants to cook Christmas dinner should contact The Big Issue in Canberra to organise a time (just joking!).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and don’t forget to

PHOTOS BY BARRY STREET AND ROHAN THOMSON

give me lots of $50 tips (just joking again!). Grant Woden Q: What do you get if you cross a bell with a skunk?

A: Jingle Smells.

HAIDAR SYDNEY

Town Square, Gungahlin & North Quarter Civic

I started selling The Big Issue this

ACT

year and have met lots of lovely

I would like to wish everyone a

a safe, COVID-free and Merry

Merry Christmas. The best thing

Christmas and a Happy New

to happen to me this year was

Year. Elizabeth P Woden Town

starting to sell The Big Issue.

Square

I have had the phone number

Great to finally be out of

for years – I am so glad I finally

lockdown! It’s great to see all of

started! I would like to thank

my customers again. I wish you

all of my customers for their

all a happy and safe Christmas

support, and wish everyone

and New Year. Doug Ainslie Shops

generous people. I wish everyone

magazines. I am looking for a girlfriend, which I mentioned in my profile. Happy Christmas to all my customers. Also, I would rather you buy the mag than give me donations – it makes me happy. Bryan Jamison In 2021 I built up my support network and the community around me, so I have more people to help me enjoy life

I remember Christmas at six years of age. My mother’s partner, John-Michael, bought her an engagement ring. Firstly, there was a card on the tree and a chase – clues in various places in the house for us to find. Eventually, there was a box found under the sofa. It was fun chasing the clues to find the box with engagement ring! And was my mother surprised! Anyway, wishing you and all your families a holy and safe holiday. Susan D Dickson Shops.

even when times get tough.

Victoria

There have been a few times

I started selling The Big Issue

the Kambah community have stepped up and helped me out this year during tough times.

From big things like helping me get furniture and other things when I moved, to helping me get additional work after lockdown. Even small stuff, like noticing when I haven’t been around or simply just saying “hi”. Thank you, Kambah, for being an amazing, inclusive and supportive community to be a part of. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Grace Kambah Shops

Christmas Greetings! Thank you to all our customers for their support over the last year. We have all had a tough year, but we hope for a better 2022. Peter & Genise Canberra

earlier this year after one of the lockdowns. I think The Big Issue is pretty amazing to be honest – what it’s done for my headspace and my back pocket. I am just so grateful to all of my customers. A big thank you always goes to my first customer of the day because they always make me smile. I look forward to keeping going out to work – less rainy days, more happy people. Matt Kmart on Bourke St, Cnr Little Collins & Swantson Sts

I hope everyone’s okay after the lockdown, and hope everyone can see their families again for Christmas. I’m looking forward to seeing my girls at Christmas – it’s been almost two years since I’ve seen one of them because of

10 DEC 2021

Tallis Brisbane CBD

a Merry Christmas. I really

17

I recently became a vendor out of necessity because I didn’t have a job. I’ve always been the kind of person who loves to talk to people, an extrovert. In other sales jobs I’ve had negative people who aren’t interested in the product. But everyone is interested in The Big Issue. I think that’s because people love to be part of the solution, not the problem. The biggest problem in Australia is homelessness.

The Big Issue is the solution to that problem. The more people contribute, the more they’re helping provide for people in need. So, let’s help each other and feel good at the same time.

I just say to people “have a good day” and people respond in kindness and generosity by buying The Big Issue. When people are nice to you it restores your belief in human nature.

Next year I want to open a food truck, called Pepe’s Mexican Pies. I was a chef for 12 years.

COVID. Hope all my customers

said she loved ABBA as well.

wish all my customers Merry

She was the last one of my family

are well – wishing you all a

After buying the mag off me, she

Christmas and Happy New Year.

left, and had all our family

Happy New Year and a Merry

went and bought the CD and said

Willy Packington St, Geelong West

history and culture inside of her.

Christmas. Donna Flinders Lane

to me, “Coral, I will buy you one

Happy Christmas to all my customers. It’s been great seeing

Thank you for your support

wishes for 2022. Teresa H&M,

over the last 12 months. Merry

Bourke St

Christmas, Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you in

I appreciate selling The Big Issue to any of you. I love you! I love you! Gamal Degraves St What a rollercoaster of a year.

Up and down. In and out. You

I want people out there to stop procrastinating and get their vaccinations. COVID will kill you – it killed my sister. I wish everybody the best of health: stay healthy, do the right thing,

don’t know which way to turn.

love each other, and always say

I’m looking forward to next

“I love you” when you leave each

year: bigger and better. I finally

other because you never know

Zoom meetings with my choir,

2022. Nick Melbourne CBD

drama and music groups. It’s

Even though we were in

finished my unit – I got a brand

kept me in touch with friends.

what’s going to happen. Louis

lockdown, I still had excitement

new washing machine and a

The choir is the Carols by

by buying a new TV and moving

dryer. I wish everyone the best

South Melbourne Market, Bourke St & Collins St

Candlelight, which I’ve been in

to new accommodation. It’s

holiday season. I want to send a

for four years. It’s so exciting

much better and it’s much closer

The best thing that happened

cheerio to the Richmond Market,

to look out among the candles

to the city, making it easier for

this year is freedom: being able

and the atmosphere from the

Alphington Market, REA Group

me to come into work. During

to get out and about again. I’m

stage at the Sidney Myer Music

and the ACU. And also have the

lockdown, it was hard to see my

looking forward to seeing my

Bowl. The ‘Hallelujah Chorus’

best, safest festive season. Let’s

grandchildren, so I am looking

little sister – she is in Sydney, so

is always a highlight, and it’s

rock’n’roll next year with sugar

I haven’t seen her for at least 12

forward to celebrating Christmas

so exciting when a big star like

and spice. Phil Richmond Market,

months. I talk to her every day

with them. It is good to see my

ACU, Alphington Markets & REA

David Campbell, Marina Prior

on FaceTime, but it’s not the

regulars again and say hello with

or Silvie Paladino performs their

same. I’ve booked my ticket to

big smiles. In 2022, I am looking

Come and buy off us! It’s been

songs and we’re possibly backing

forward to keeping healthy,

them. It’s live, so you feel a bit

well and happy. I wish all my

nervous, but you’ve done several

customers a Merry Christmas

rehearsals. The people at The Big

and a Happy New Year. I

Issue are very supportive. And

hope you continue enjoying

out on the street you meet a lot

the magazine and our happy

of nice people and feel useful out

calendar. A big thank you! Lionel

among the other workers. The

Cnr Flinders & Swanston Sts

Big Issue is a good product, and a lot of people enjoy reading the articles, including me. Thank you to my customers for their generosity. Paul H&M, Bourke St

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

said, “Thank you.” Coral Bendigo

you all throughout the year. Best

This year I have been doing

18

as well as a Christmas present.” I

Hey guys, I’m back! I hope 2021 was an alright year, and I hope 2022 will be better. Last year I got COVID and pneumonia at the same time. It felt like

It felt so good to see your familiar

someone had hit me in the

faces when I resumed selling. I

kidneys. It was hard to breathe.

missed your encouraging words,

The doctors fought hard and

even more than the practical

managed to keep me out of ICU.

help you have given me over the

To my customers, I hope your

years. So many of you ask what

Christmas will be wonderful

I am writing now and when my

and filled with joy. I’m looking

next article will be published in

forward to next year – getting

this magazine. So I rush home

back to work, seeing my

each night and cobble the words

customers and spending time

together, hoping they’ll entertain

with my friends. Craig Mc Rialto,

or interest my “cheer squad”.

Collins St & Maling Rd, Canterbury

May you and your families have

I have a good relationship with

a safe and joyful holiday season.

a tough year, because of the coronavirus we haven’t been able to work a lot. I’m hoping for a better 2022. I managed to get my licence and a car throughout lockdown – it was hardcore.

It’s given me freedom to travel and see family. It makes me feel great to be able to get away and out of the city. My kids are in WA and SA, and I’ve got two granddaughters, plus a grandson

Sydney, where I’ll also catch up with my little brother and my sister’s kids. Oh, I can’t wait.

I can’t wait! I’m counting the days. I started at The Big Issue in July. It’s given me a job and gets me to meet people. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to my customers, and please keep supporting The Big Issue because it’s important to us. KJ Cnr Swanston & Collins Sts

due in December. So I want to

I am happy to be back at work.

say a big hello to them – and

Next year, I am hoping that my

hope to see you all as soon as the borders open again. Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to everyone! Trevor Princess Bridge To all my customers, I wish you all the best and thank you for having me. 2021 was a shemozzle, so in 2022 I am looking forward to going out and doing some fishing. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Cyril Seddon

family comes to Australia – they’re in Ukraine. I came here when I was nine. In 2011, I went on holiday to Ukraine to see family and friends, and I met my girlfriend Luda then. We’ve been dating for 10 years. I speak to her on Skype every day. Two years ago, she should’ve come here, but then COVID came, and everything shut down. So I’m hoping she’ll get here this year.

We will be celebrating Orthodox Christmas on 7 January. Wishing

my customers and hope they

I’ve had tragedy this year, a lot

come back next year. I like seeing

of people have passed away,

As I was reading about ABBA in

your smiles – it’s a highlight of

including my sister Renee, who

Ed#648 tears were rolling down

working. The conversations are

died from COVID. We grew up

Mentone, Camberwell & Berwick

my face as they are my favourite

great. Next year, I’m looking

in the Bronx, and she moved to

It’s been hard with lockdown,

group. When I was selling the

forward to working without

Brooklyn where she lived with

but now it’s back to normal it’s

magazine on Tuesday, a lady

interruptions. And I’d like to

her son and two granddaughters.

good. It’s good to see some of

Mariann Albert Park

everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Denis

my old friends who buy the magazines. I have some regulars who come by and give me a cup of tea and have a chat. I missed them over the lockdown. I’m doing acoustic guitar lessons at the moment, and I’m hoping to produce an album – I’ve written a few songs. All the best to my customers! Steven Cnr Exhibition & Lonsdale Sts & the Causeway

I want to thank all of my customers for sending in a bunch of postcards from the Vendor Week edition. I have a whole stack – I got more than VICTORIA TOP ROW: Phil, Alex, Louis , Dary l, Cyril MIDDLE ROW: Craig F, Donna, Tere sa, Stephen, Jeffrey, David , Marian, Trevor, Matt , Garr y BOTTOM ROW: Lionel, Lachlan, KJ, Les and Matilda, Johnnie P, Willy, Gamal

made me feel great, and I look forward to getting more! I love working out on the street: I like the constant interactions with people, and I like the freedom, the exercise, and I believe in the magazine and what I’m doing.

Michael Prahran Markets

We weren’t working for four months because of the coronavirus. Our customers are slowly coming back after lockdown, and it’s great to see the regular people again. We shifted into our new place this time last year and didn’t have much of a Christmas. This year, we’ve got a Christmas tree – it’s got cool lights – and some decorations, like tinsel, so it will feel a bit more festive this year. Thanks to our customers for buying the magazine and calendar. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy

And wishing all of you a very

to a chap by the name of James,

you from me, Chucky and Sooty

blessed Christmas and Happy

from interstate, who paid for 50

for all the support throughout

New Year. May God bless you

magazines for me. I’d also like

the pandemic. Garry Cnr William

and family. Sue Melbourne CBD

to say Merry Christmas to all my

& Lonsdale Sts & Flagstaff Station

The best thing that happened to me this year was when The Big Issue made me into a cartoon. I will spend Christmas with my friends in the church meeting.

Merry Christmas and thank you!

Jeffrey Windsor & St Kilda

This Christmas I want to go to South Australia for a holiday.

I will visit my friends in the church and spend New Year at Carrickalinga Beach – it’s a beautiful beach. I like working at The Big Issue because I like meeting new people and getting good sales. I’m a shy person and this helps my confidence. Alex Cnr Elzabeth & Collins Sts

I would like to thank all my customers, and The Big Issue, for all your support while we could not work. I am glad to be back and hope to see you soon. Daryl Northcote

It was my first time on the cover of The Big Issue, for the Paralympics (Ed#641). It

stuff. David H&M, Bourke St Thank you to all of my customers. I look forward to seeing you in 2022. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

A young woman came up to me with a very fancily boxed cake,

the Paralympics and winning

and she leaned over to me and

gold. I felt awesome when one customer asked to get a selfie with me outside of Grill’d.

My story was also in The Big Issue UK, which made me feel awesome because I’ve been to

Hawthorn gives us and hopefully

to compete. I’d like to say hi

they will continue to give us

to my customers in Koornang

I’ve really missed being outside

their hard-earned money and we

Road and the shopping strip in

will always be there. Thank you!

Carnegie. Lachlan Carnegie

New Year to all in Hawthorn and

coffees and water and that sort of

about when I competed in

Flemington Farmers Markets & St Kilda Market

days, I realised how much they

me quite a bit and given me

Johnny Bourke St

the UK three or four times before

Happy Christmas and Happy

Federal Coffee who have helped

customers asked me questions

We are happy with the business

after being back for a couple of

customers, and to the staff at

made me feel very happy. My

New Year. Vesna & Craig

and talking to my regulars. Even PHOTO BY MARK AVELLINO

hospital. Finally, a massive thank

said, “I want you to take this $20 and this cake to the organic food stall and say ‘Happy Birthday, from someone who wishes you a very happy day.’” This is what I really like about selling The Big Issue – coming across really unexpected delights. When you’re out on the streets, there is a certain energy that opens up and it makes you feel seen.

I was on TV this year with The

It’s so much better than feeling

Big Issue – on the Weekend

isolated and alone. Have a lovely

Today Show – live from the

time over the holiday period,

steps of Flinders Street Station.

and may you dream. And if your

missed me. And they’ve always

everywhere else.

been supportive of my two cats,

Les & Matilda Hawthorn

Sooty and Chucky. I’m so glad to

To all my beloved and precious

I enjoyed doing that, and the

dreams don’t come true, don’t

be back selling again and happy

customers who have supported

fact that we able to talk about

worry about it, just pass them on

to see all my friends again. In

me in the past pandemic year,

The Big Issue magazine and give

to someone else if you no longer

2022 I’m looking forward to Dad

I wish to express my sincere

some significance to where it all

want them. Marian Vic Markets,

coming home after a stint in

thanks for your loving kindness.

started. I’d also like to say thanks

Centreway & the Causeway

10 DEC 2021

effort into selling the edition. It

19

100 postcards. I put a lot of

New South Wales I Big Wish You and your families and friends a very Merry Christmas. I Big Wish You a happy, joyous New Year. I Big Wish You enjoy freedoms out of lockdown, stay safe and healthy.

May 2022 be on the right track for everyone. Thank you to all our readers for your support.

Anne-Marie WSE

Potts Pointers, what a year it’s been. It’s been a chAllenge for all of Us. From opera on The rooftops to takeaway In our own reSidences, we survived and now thrive. It’s great to be back; now’s the tiMe for friends, for family and to celebrate. Stay strong,

NEW SOUTH WALES John Mc, Michael JT R, Pasquale, Chris , Alan, Trev, W TOP ROW: Lee, Beverley, Matt r D, Emma, Haidar, Fay, Nathan Pete o, Robb , stian Seba ley, MIDDLE ROW: Brad W, Luke, Glenn F, Rachel t Scot , Mary G, Gary : ROW BOTTOM

Christmas is here, see you all next year. Scott Potts Point This year, I joined a new disability service and have started going out every Friday.

I’ve been on outings to Sydney Zoo, tenpin bowling, out for BBQs, and trips to Warragamba Dam and Cataract Dam. The best thing about working at The Big Issue is talking to other vendors.

I’d like to thank vendor John Mc who encourages me to stay happy and keep selling. In 2022, I’m looking forward to travelling – I hope to travel with a friend to Tasmania. Thank you to my customers for buying The Big Issue. Hope you have a Merry

The best thing about working

around Central Station before

at the Women’s Subscription

for five days. I’m looking forward

COVID. I’ve met a lot of great

Enterprise is feeling appreciated

to it. I have missed my travelling.

people and I appreciate the

and needed for doing something.

Thank you so much to all my

support and friendship that has

The best thing that happened

customers, fellow Big Issue

developed over time. Have a

to me this year is getting fully

vendors and staff. Please have a

great Christmas and hopefully

vaccinated and therefore being

safe Christmas and a promising

a COVID-free New Year. Drew

able to sort out some shopping at

New Year. See you next year.

Summer Hill & Barangaroo

Westfield. Keli M WSE

Glenn F Woolworths, Elizabeth & Foveaux St & David Jones Market

Chrissy wish number seven,

Happy Christmas to all my

wow! Have we not been through

clients in Crows Nest. Thank you

a rough couple of years? So a

for all your support during the

simple wish I’d like to share to all

lockdown. I’m looking forward

Thank you to all of my customers. Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope that we all have a better New Year than this last one. Joe Bondi Junction

is that one day we can simply use

to seeing you all soon. Caspa

our knowledge and education

Crows Nest

to help each other, no matter

The best thing about being

2021 was a challenging year due

our social status, from the prime

Year! Charles Pitt St Mall

a kid was holidays with my

to lockdown. I had made the

minister to the person living

grandmother and grandfather.

The past two years have been

decision to enrol in a design

homeless on the street. May we

And the best thing about

course at TAFE. It was really

help each other with respect

working with The Big Issue is

intimidating and frustrating

and dignity. I wish for us all that

meeting all the people, chatting

especially in lockdown with

one day we can help each other

to customers on pitch, whether

online classes. I am now in my

provide a stronger community

you sell or not. Talking to new

last week and I am thankful

that is not so divided. It’s a big

and different people makes me

for the opportunity to do this

wish, that’s true, but what the

happy. Merry Christmas to all

instead of being focussed on

last seven years with The Big

my happy customers and Happy

the negativities of lockdown.

Issue have shown me is that

New Year. Lynn Aldi Mayfield &

it helps break the fear and

Hunter St Mall, Newcastle

my mild stroke in September, I was scared and didn’t want to come back to work, but I’m a fighter and I missed everyone, so here I am. What pulled me THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

at Barangaroo and previously

After that, I’ll head to Adelaide

Christmas and a Happy New

hard for everyone. Since I had

20

Prisoner: Cell Block H reunion.

through was the support of Big Issue staff, and customers who bought a magazine or just said

Bronwyn WSE

hi. Truly means a lot to me. My

Thanks so much to all the people

isolation. Please everyone take

This year The Big Issue

plans for 2022? Well, I’m starting

who have bought the magazine

care, and thank you to everyone

celebrated a milestone – 25

off by spending New Year’s Eve

and supported me over the time

at The Big Issue for all your hard

years of publishing since its

in Melbourne for my first time

I’ve been selling The Big Issue:

work. And let’s try our best to

launch in June 1996, celebrated

ever, and then going back in

the people in Summer Hill on

be a unique painting each and

in the special edition #638.

late February for five days for a

the weekends and in the city

every day. Rachel T Pyrmont

I was featured in an article

with an image of myself for

helped me to save to take care of

relate to! Working at The Big

to health issues. I remember

this milestone edition. Truly,

Lulu, my cat, which is my biggest

Issue will help me to put savings

when I was selling at Harris

this was the best thing that

responsibility. I wish everyone

towards the trip to the reef, and

and Broadway, and I met some

happened to me this year! I have

wonderful things for Christmas,

for that I’m very grateful. I’ll

really nice girls from the ABC.

been dedicated to selling the

because everything is really good

love the day when I can send

And there was a fellow who

magazine at the same pitch since

for me now. Terri WSE

The Big Issue a postcard of my

liked me talking about my cat.

trip to the reef. Here’s to being

I miss them. Hopefully I might

postcard-ready – happy holidays

see them all soon. I’m grateful

everybody. Melissa M WSE

for The Big Issue and that they

The world was so quiet. My

The best thing this year is that I

followed me all through the time

favourite Christmas memory was

can now see Mum in the nursing

in 1963 in Dandenong, Victoria.

home. I’m taking her to lunch

It was a very hot morning and

on Friday – and I’ll be paying for

my father came outside to find

her! I’ll see her at Christmastime,

a 10-foot poisonous snake that

too, and I’m having lunch at my

soon disappeared. In 2022, I’m

place this year. One year I bought

looking forward to being in

my customer a box of chocolates

In 2021 we celebrate the

touch with my feelings, thus

for Christmas and that was a

& Broadway

end of lockdown thanks to

perhaps a little more aware.

good memory. Next year I’m

the wonderful efforts of the

It’s good to be back selling

The best thing about The Big

looking forward to seeing all the

scientists who made our social

on the street; it’s good to be

Issue for me is person-to-person

staff and customers now that

lives busy again. The best thing

making a little more money.

participation, talking to many

COVID restrictions have eased.

is to head to the street and sell

The restrictions have been very

diverse people, and of course

Mark JW Sydney Eye Hospital

to my brilliant customers who

tough, especially as I live alone.

a little more income. To all my

made efforts to buy, even from

customers, thanks for your

Making friendships is a good

I’m happy to be back on my pitch

remote locations or other states

kindness shown in purchasing

habit for eternity. I am yet to find

at Strand Arcade. It’s been one

or overseas. Next year I hope to

the mag – happiness and good

a religion for which this is not

year since I started selling The

travel and come back with lots

health for as many of us as

true. Whether you are here once,

Big Issue. My wish for next year

of wonderful pictures and to tell

possible. Glenn W Double Bay &

or on the rebound, we’re all here

is to meet new people. I would

stories. This year I liked that my

Paddington Markets

for a journey. It would be nice if

like to wish all my customers a

the politicians decided to join us

Merry Christmas and a beautiful

Thank you to my customers. I

– faster defence and cheaper. No

New Year. Many thanks for

hope you still buy mags from

nukes. Andrew Newcastle

supporting me. Pasquale Strand

of Federation. Next year celebrates the 90th anniversary of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

I would like to thank my loyal customers, and The Big Issue community in general in the toughest economic climate in recent memory. Gary G Cnr Market & Kent Sts

Lebanese customer came and checked on me! Haidar Newtown

opportunity to unwind and selfreflect during COVID lockdown.

I’ve been away, and I thank them for the support. They invited me to the 25th birthday party and I appreciated that. Good to see everyone again like the staff and vendors Dave and Rachel who are my buddies. Fay Cnr Harris St

Arcade, George St

Thank you to each and every

us in 2022. Merry Christmas

one of my customers and friends

and Happy New Year. David I

who have supported me this

Woolworths, CBD

New Year to Big Issue staff. I like

difficult year. May your holidays

The best thing this year, even

be full of love, peace and

been working as a vendor for a

how to move on with certain

during lockdown, has been

happiness and may it continue

couple of years now. Thank you

things in my life. It’s a very nice

walking at Maroubra Beach (with

through the coming year. Merry

to my customers who are always

environment with the other

mask!) early in the mornings. I

Christmas and Happy New Year!

very helpful and nice. It’s always

ladies at WSE too. This gives

find it so relaxing to be by the

very nice to see you. Looking

me enthusiasm to participate

forward to a good present this

in things that could give me

Christmas. Robbie P Blackheath

good employment in the future.

Josephine Mona Vale, Avalon & Frenchs Forest

PHOTO BY AUTUMN MOONEY

The best thing this year was the

ocean. I really appreciated WSE coordinator Beverley keeping

What a crazy mixed-up year,

in contact with me during

full of ups and downs. Thank

lockdowns and letting me know

you to everyone who supported

how the other ladies have been

me through that time. I hope

keeping. There have been some

everyone has a great Christmas

fun lockdown activities this year,

and I look forward to seeing you

too! Irene WSE

all in 2022. Marcus Concord

I will be celebrating my 50th

Merry Christmas and Happy working with The Big Issue. I’ve

I hope everyone is healthy and that it will take another 100 years for another outbreak. John Km Cnr Castlereagh & Park Sts

Getting out of lockdown is the best thing that happened this year. I’ll be coming back to work

I’m very grateful for having my

birthday in 2022 and I really

work at WSE and the friendships

want to go snorkelling at the

I’ve made there. It’s so nice to

Great Barrier Reef, as I’ve never

have all the wonderful support.

done it before. It would be a

It’s meant I have a better quality

lovely way to celebrate my

of life and I wouldn’t have been

birthday and to get rid of the

able to have things in my life

COVID shackles of 2020 and

I hope to go back selling again

that I do now. And the work has

2021, which I’m sure we can all

soon. I’ve been away so long due

Working at The Big Issue has given me the courage to know

Maybe I can be self-employed as I’ve been studying Nail Technology at Ultimo TAFE for the past two years. I’d like to wish everyone a very prosperous and Happy Christmas and New Year. Roslyn WSE

for Christmas. I haven’t seen my customers because I’ve been busy. I hope we have a better year next year. All the best for 2022. Bradley Palm Beach

10 DEC 2021

celebrated the 120th anniversary

21

February 2014. This year also

22

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Companionship, affection and unconditional love: our pets bring us so much. But what happens when we fall on hard times and can’t bring our furry friends to live with us? We meet the housing providers pushing for pet-friendly accommodation for all, including a cheeky little staffy named Gryphin.

by Anastasia Safioleas, Contributing Editor @anast

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

A Housing Tail

10 DEC 2021

H

e is my world,” says Kayla about her staffy Gryphin. She watches him as he darts across the grass at the local off-leash dog park, his legs a blur. It’s early in the morning and this place is buzzing with canines. Gryph stops to give the air a good sniff. Then with a lopsided grin he looks over at Kayla and lets out a happy bark before zooming off again.

“He was a bit of a butthole when I first got him – he would escape daily,” she says. At two, he’d been relinquished by his owners and had finally found his forever home with Kayla. “I’d come home, and he just wasn’t there. I’d find him at the oval around the corner from the house watching people playing football and trying to get involved.” She laughs at the memory and looks adoringly at Gryph, now eight. He’s capering about with a fluffy white terrier who’s come over to say hi.

Gryphin is not merely a companion for Kayla, but her lifeline. Through periods of homelessness and addiction, her trusty dog has stood by her side. “Gryph is the most important thing in my life,” she says.

Australia is a country of pet owners. Throughout the pandemic we’ve welcomed them into our families in unprecedented numbers. Pet ownership has climbed from 62 to 69 per cent of households in the last two years, according to Animal Medicines Australia, with one million more dogs attained during the pandemic.

Our animals provide companionship and help us combat loneliness. And during a time marked by social distancing and isolation, they’ve given us affection when we’ve needed it the most. For our more vulnerable members of the community, the friendship provided by our pets is felt more keenly. Around one in five Australians experiencing homelessness owns a pet.

23

LE AP S AN D BO UN DS KAYL A EM BR AC ES GR YP: HI N

That’s around 20,000 animals across the country. And it’s no wonder. Their unconditional love, emotional support and security do wonders for our mental health.

Originally from Tasmania, Kayla moved from New South Wales – where she had been living with her mum and stepdad – to Melbourne as soon as she turned 18.

“It was pretty tough, but I managed. Not much worried me back then. I was young and just doing whatever,” she says. However, a dependency on drugs and alcohol followed. Then three years ago a faltering relationship brought everything to a head.

“I was living with my partner in a rental. It was a shit relationship – there were a lot of arguments. When we split up, I didn’t have family or anything to fall back on.

I didn’t have anywhere to go. I was stuck. I was like, what am I meant to do?”

Kayla found herself looking for emergency crisis accommodation, but discovered none allowed pets at that time. While community organisation Launch Housing was able to provide Kayla a temporary bed, Gryphin wasn’t welcome. With a bed in emergency accommodation hard to come by, a heavy-hearted Kayla took her beloved pet to a kennel.

“I didn’t know for how long I was saying goodbye for.

It was terrible. Heartbreaking. And it cost me $200 a fortnight.” An expense that left her with little to live on.

Following a six-month stay at Launch Housing’s Southbank crisis centre, Kayla moved into transitional housing and was reunited with Gryph. The reunion, however, was short-lived. Assaulted by her roommate’s boyfriend, Kayla was forced to moved out. Homeless once again, she knew she had to return to Launch. That meant taking Gryph back to the kennel.

Anyone experiencing homelessness faces numerous barriers to securing accommodation. Rocketing house prices, increasing rents and a lack of affordable housing supply are difficult enough. Own a pet? The task becomes even harder. Most crisis accommodation, community housing, rooming houses and motels are not animal friendly. And while social housing accepts pets, there is a 10-year waiting list. Able to afford a private rental? If you live outside of Queensland, Victoria or the ACT, trying to secure a property with a pet gives any landlord the right to reject your application.

Distressingly, there is also growing research linking pets with family violence. Australian and international research suggests that pet abuse occurs in up to 70 per cent of domestic and family violence cases, with perpetrators using it as a form of intimidation and control over partners and family members. But with most refuges unable to take animals, there have been instances where victims-survivors and their families stay in these abusive relationships to avoid leaving behind their beloved pet.

Things are slowly changing. When Kayla required emergency accommodation for a second time following her unsuccessful stint in transitional housing, Launch Housing was getting ready to trial

It was so much better having him with me. Mental health-wise, just having him there was such a relief.

Since Gryph, they’ve housed numerous cats and dogs, a pet rat and even an axolotl, the surprisingly cute walking fish. According to Launch, they remain one of the few crisis accommodation providers to offer this service nationally.

Similar work has been done to ensure survivors of family violence also have access to pet-friendly crisis accommodation.

In response to the 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence, the Victorian government is replacing communal refuge accommodation with more independent housing that will allow for animals. For example, Safe Steps, Victoria’s family violence response centre, now provides access to cat‑ and dog-friendly crisis accommodation that also includes food, bedding, toys and vet care. The RSPCA in New South Wales is actively working with the City of Sydney, as well as several refuges, including Dignity in Sydney and Liberty in Port Macquarie, to help them convert to a pet‑inclusive model.

There have also been pet-friendly changes made in private rentals. Legislation recently introduced by the Queensland government will help those families forced to surrender their pets in the scramble to secure housing in the face of a worsening rental crisis. Victoria and ACT are the only other Australian territories with similar legislation already in place.

It’s been almost four years since Kayla was in emergency crisis accommodation. Now sober for over a year, working and in permanent housing with a brand-new partner, life is sweet. And with Gryph by her side, it feels like anything is possible.

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pet-friendly accommodation – one of the first in Australia to do so. According to Di Morton, a team leader at their East St Kilda crisis centre, “We’ve known for a long time that the relationship we have with our pets, let alone for our clients who are homeless and own a pet, is important. So we’ve put a lot of work into what it would take for us to offer pet‑friendly rooms.”

Launch was able to offer Kayla one of these rooms, and it meant Gryphin was welcome to stay. Together they shared a bedroom at the same crisis centre, its courtyard perfect for the cheeky staffy. Kayla was overjoyed: “I was like, hell yeah!”

The benefits of having Gryph with her were immediate.

“It was so much better having him with me. Mental health‑wise, just having him there was such a relief. And having that responsibility to look after my dog meant I used a lot less.”

Fellow residents also reaped the benefits. “They loved it.

Every time I walked through the hallway, people were like, ‘Oh my god, Gryphin!’ The morale changed so much.”

Morton has also seen the benefits of pet-friendly crisis accommodation first-hand, not just for residents but for the carers as well. “We love it. It’s a real benefit for the staff. It absolutely changes everything. We do pretty hefty work – it’s not an easy job – so to know that a dog is on site makes a big difference to the morale of staff.

“We’ve just had this old cat – he must have been 18 or 19 – and it was beautiful. He’d sit quietly outside his owner’s room.

I’ve got two cats, and I know how important they can be to your life. And we’ve had many dogs and we love having them.”

10 DEC 2021

KAYLA, ON HER DOG GRYPHIN

series by Chris Bray

The Big Picture

The Crabs That Ate Christmas Behold the Christmas Island red crab migration – one of the largest animal migration events in the world.

by Rhianna Boyle

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Rhianna Boyle is a Melbourne-based science writer and scientist.

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FOR MORE, VISIT CHRISBRAYPHOTOGRAPHY.COM.

10 DEC 2021

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uring the red crab migration, Christmas Island locals rise early for a special mission.

“It’s amazing,” says Chris Bray, wildlife photographer and resident. “The whole community comes out and everyone’s got a garden rake. People are out the front of their houses just raking the crabs off the road to let the cars come through without crushing them.”

Over a week or two, some 50 million red crabs leave their jungle homes to breed on the shoreline. In numerical terms, the event is one of the largest animal migrations on Earth. The normally sedentary animals can cover distances of up to 5km.

Close encounters are part of island life. “They come through your house. You’ll be forever hearing something go clank clank, and a crab’s just walking through the kitchen,” Bray says. Fortunately, he adds, the crabs’ placid demeanour means they pose no risk to bare feet. “They’re incredibly chilled out. You can just pick them up.”

Being a land crab comes with challenges. Not only do the crabs dehydrate easily, they also need to spawn at high tide. Consequently, the migration is timed according to the arrival of the wet season and the phase of the moon, leaving just a few timeslots in the lead up to Christmas when breeding is possible.

Intriguingly, the crabs know how much time they have to complete the journey, and plan accordingly.

Some years they take rest stops, but when timing is tighter, they rush down to the water.

As well as the daily raking sessions, migrating crabs are protected by road closures. A crab bridge and several underpasses have also been installed.

Bray, who operates an ecolodge on the island, has turned the lodge’s car into a “crab mobile” with mini snowplow‑style attachments that gently and humanely divert crabs away from the wheels.

He says the crabs make good subjects, due to their striking colour and sedate pace. It wasn’t difficult to capture a single crab posed in front of One Tree Rock, a local landmark. During the migration, he says, “it’s hard not to get a crab in your photo”.

The main hurdles are crabs swarming his equipment, or an unexpected wave. Then there’s the popularity of this highly photogenic phenomenon. “You’re sharing the beach with the BBC, Netflix or even IMAX,” he says.

“Every film crew on Earth seems to descend on this little island to try and film it.”

A month after the initial migration, the process is repeated, in reverse and in miniature. “One day you wake up and the whole coastline is covered in these tiny red crabs crawling out of the ocean and going back into the jungle,” says Bray. That is, he adds, if you’re lucky.

No‑one knows where the baby crabs go while at sea, or why in many years, no young return at all. It’s just another mystery surrounding this surreal phenomenon.

ONLY ATOP A FINGER CAN THE TINY SIZE OF THESE BABY CRABS BE APPRECIATED

XXX

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

LUCKILY, THEY AREN’T THE PINCHING KIND…

EVERY YEAR, SOME 50 MILLION CRABS MAKE FOR THE COAST, CREATING QUITE THE SPECTACLE AND FORCING MANY ROADS TO CLOSE

THE CRAB BRIDGE: ONE OF MANY INGENIOUS CRAB-FRIENDLY STRUCTURES ON CHRISTMAS ISLAND XXX

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A THICK RED CARPET OF BABY CRABS EMERGING FROM THE SEA

Letter to My Younger Self

I Don’t Go in for Regrets Writer Helen Garner on keeping a diary, going with her gut and leaving out the boring bits.

by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor @melissajfulton

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suppose I was a swot at school. I was good at school. Well, put it this way: I was no good at maths and things like that. But I was really good in English and I was good at languages and I learned French and German. When I was young, it was a kind of middle-class thing that if you weren’t considered old enough and mature enough to go to university, you did two years’ matric – you repeated Year 12 you would call it now. And so I did that. And unfortunately for me that year, they made me the head prefect and that was awful.

At my school the prefect had to do ridiculous things – at the end of the school day, there had to be a prefect standing at the gate, making sure all the girls had their gloves on. And not only the gloves and hat, but their socks had to be turned down in a very particular way. It chimed in with something rather authoritarian in my personality. I look back on that year with terrible embarrassment and mortification. I don’t know if this is just something that’s inside my head, or if everyone else was thinking God what a bitch. And I don’t wish to know, so please don’t write me a letter if you’re reading this.

I remember burning a diary that I had. I was out the back tearing up these notebooks and throwing them into the burning incinerator. And my mother was standing there saying, “Oh please let me read it – don’t throw it all away. Let me read it, just one page.” And I said, “Absolutely not,” and I flung the whole lot in there.

I don’t remember ever fantasising about being a writer because it wouldn’t have occurred to me that I could, because I was a girl. And because I was

HOW TO END A STORY: DIARIES 1996-1998 IS OUT NOW.

TOP: WITH DAUGHTER ALICE GARNER IN 2006 BOTTOM: WITH THE CROSSWORD

10 DEC 2021

It’s not a matter of recording things against forgetfulness so much as just getting a handle on things, because life comes at you with such force and in such a complex way.

And sometimes you feel as if you’re trying to get your footing in the middle of this enormous rush of events and feelings and disappointments and hopes and all things that life is made up out of. And you’ve got to have a place to stand. And it just so happens that my way of doing that is to keep a diary.

What I had to fight against in myself was that that inculcated sense that women’s concerns were less meaningful, and less valuable and less large than the concerns of male writers. But the older I get the more crazy that seems to me because I now know that in a house, and in a family, enormous archetypal struggles are played out. Even a couple – that’s why love stories are so endlessly fascinating, because they’re power struggles, often deep struggles between two people who are trying to find a place to stand where they won’t be diminished by the person they love, or who loves them, and they won’t be dominated or they won’t themselves be domineering and smash everything. As for the whole measure of parents and children, I mean, to think that it’s not shatteringly important, how you behave towards a child, it seems to me quite insane.

I never wrote the diaries with publication in mind. I think they’ve got a raw quality for that reason. There are people who won’t be happy with this [new] book at all. But somehow I made it right with myself; I feel that it was very important for me that this book should not be a hatchet job. All these things happened more than 20 years ago. And things that are very raw at a certain time can lose their ability to wound. I don’t know how the people who are represented in this book will take it. And this gives me very bad 2am horror fits occasionally. But now that I’ve seen the book, I can see that there’s more balance in it, that the picture of the marriage is more fair than I feared it might not be. And that means a lot to me, but it was a very unhappy and tortured time of my life. It’s a cautionary tale.

I don’t go in for regrets. I mean, naturally I go in for regrets in my life, things that I’ve done that I’m ashamed of, or moments of unkindness or harshness or having broken someone’s heart: those are the things that I regret. But the books are there, and I just have to cop it.

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PHOTOS BY DARREN JAMES AND SIMON SCHLUTER

Australian. And all the famous writers that I knew about were men, and they lived in Europe or in England. I was bereft of any sort of idea that I could write, because I, like everybody that studied literature, was taught that literature had, quote, themes, unquote.

And I didn’t know how you did that.

By the time I was a single mother and I started living in those big houses, or collective households, as we called them back then, I was writing a diary. That was how I kept my shit together basically. I enjoyed writing the diary; it was a daily thing that I did. In a sense, it was the best part of my life, apart from my daughter. And then I got involved with this guy who was a junkie, and that put me through some painful hoops. And as this affair developed, one day it occurred to me. I thought, I’m living in a story. And by a story, I don’t just mean a random series of events but something that had a curve in it, and a shape. And there were lots of characters in it, because I lived in these households that were full of musicians, and we were always going out dancing and going to the swimming pool. And there was this whole painful strand of it, which was my obsessive relationship with this guy who was busy destroying himself. I used to keep the diary in a Spirax notebook, and then just by hand, I copied the bits that were interesting into another clean exercise book, and I left out the boring bits.

That was the process [for Monkey Grip].

It was all gut feeling. I had no idea what I was doing. One thing that happened was I thought, Well, there’s a hell of a lot of people who are represented in this book, maybe I should show it to them before I publish it. So I got some copies, and I took them to various households where my friends lived, and these copies just lay around people’s houses for a while. And I thought, If anybody’s going to object, they know where I am – they can come and find me. And nobody did. So I just went ahead and published it [in 1977]. This was a period of the big flare up of feminism, and so it was exciting that a woman had published a book like this that was not your ordinary sticking‑to-the-rules-type novel. There was some sniffing from the guys who thought, How dare she.

I still keep a diary. It’s a practice in expressing things that are hard to get into words, or things that you wouldn’t say in conversation because they’re too intimate or too embarrassing. To clarify things for myself is the first urge in writing, I think, to make something out of what I am experiencing.

Ricky

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

No game of campground cricket in history has ever seen a single player dismissed by way of LBW.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Campground Ashes

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hristmas is fast approaching, which means a sad anniversary is nearly upon me. I will try to be strong, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be okay. Dear reader, it’s been almost one year since I was clean bowled by a 12-year-old boy in a game of campground cricket at Porepunkah Bridge Holiday Park.

I’m not sure how it happened, no matter how many times I replay that horrible moment in my head. I’m not sure how the delivery beat my forward defence. Maybe I didn’t get to the pitch of the ball and it deviated off a bindi. It doesn’t really matter how it happened; all I remember is hearing that horrid sound of tennis ball against wheelie bin. Oh, the shame.

Campground cricket is probably one of my favourite summer rituals. It brings together kids of all ages (including 40+) and games last until bad light stops play. Just like real cricket, there are meal breaks. American-born author Bill Bryson once remarked that cricket was the only sport in the world that had this rather genteel arrangement. He also pondered if “...the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively”.

Look, the man has a point. I will freely admit cricket is one of the stupidest games ever invented – utterly bewildering for the uninitiated (such as Bryson) and full of bizarrely specialised terminology, deliveries, strokes, fielding positions and equipment.

I know them all, because as a cricket-obsessed child I was entranced by the minutiae of the game. But I found the real game pretty boring to be honest (quelle surprise!). My love for cricket was instilled in the casual forms of the game: backyard cricket, beach cricket and, of course, the Ashes of the genre, campground cricket.

I’ve been playing in this annual tournament that tours campgrounds around Australia and New Zealand since I could hold

a plastic bat. The best campgrounds have a spacious field, although you don’t want it too big as it encourages people to hit too hard and you spend the game chasing after the ball.

There are several constants. The ball will get repeatedly lost under caravans and in bushes.

The ball will sometimes be hit into an open tent, causing much hilarity. One kid will get hit in the eye. There will be arguments about whose turn it is to bat or bowl, and whether you have to run when you hit the ball. I’ve always been against this rule as I feel it discourages development of defensive strokes and encourages inelegant slogging. There will always be kids who have never learned to bowl and will throw the ball (this makes me very sad). There will be constant appeals for leg before wicket even though no game of campground cricket in history has ever seen a single player dismissed by way of LBW. The thing I love most about campground cricket, other than the game itself, is how it brings people together. It’s easy for a shy kid to join the game, because you don’t have to be allocated a team or do anything other than stand on the margins looking vaguely interested. Congratulations, you’re now a fielder. An older kid will then ask you if want to bowl, and soon after you’ll have a bunch of new friends.

I can’t wait for this season’s instalment: the smell of sizzling sausages, the collection of thongs behind the wickets, the summer light slowly fading as the younger kids get called from the pitch for bedtime. It’s as recognisably summer as sunscreen in the eyes, as burning hot bitumen and saltwater in the hair. I might be the oldest kid still playing, but this year I’ve got a point to prove. A silly sport, yes, but it’s our silly sport. It’s our summer.

Ricky is a writer, musician and one happy camper.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

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elcome to the second half of “how to find your way through Christmas: 2021 dispatches”. In recap – let’s pretend I’m a Netflix blockbuster – a fortnight ago I banged on about the collapse of the supply chain, and the allure of Christmas dinner in a can. But last year, I banged on about Melania Trump’s Christmas decorations, so we’re making progress. You know what’s wild? This year, Australians do not have a cockamamie clue what Jill Biden has done with the traditional 5.5-metre fir in the Blue Room at the White House, and, gosh, isn’t that a pick-me-up on par with a dab of peppermint oil on your knicker gusset?

The reason Jill’s Xmas stylings haven’t made our news, of course, is that Jill is a regular human who got the memo on “How to First Lady”. She’s exerted herself to give Americans a wholesome, unremarkable and comforting display via a tree covered with doves, a pile of red gift boxes, and a theme of gratitude for frontline workers. The result is festive, conspicuously “every Christmas” and utterly forgettable. By mid-January, memories of them will only be accessible via hypnosis, as they’ve already broken down into mulch in the mind compost of Christmas pasts. But that was Jill’s one job; for her decorations to not lodge in the amygdala like Melania Trump’s corridor of blood-red trees doing Handmaid’s Tale cosplay.

Christmas isn’t meant to be “memorable”, no matter what advertisers tell you. A “memorable” Christmas means there was drama, death or dislocation, like you forgot to defrost the turkey or you lost your job or your waters broke while trifle was served. Christmas is meant to be repetitive and comforting, an embroidering of traditions and rituals that bring us together. The same decorations, the same foods and smells, the same people, the same terrible cracker jokes. Drinking white wine in the sun, listening to Tim Minchin sing

about it, making gravy, listening to Paul Kelly sing about it. It’s why it’s so painful if you’re excluded or on your own, or the Christmas you’re having doesn’t match the Christmas mash-up in your head and heart.

It occurs to me that this year cannot be an ordinary Christmas. There’s been too much change and uncertainty, lives upended. There will be reunions! And separations. Christmas is going to be memorable one way or the other, which gives us, essentially, two choices.

One, to lean hard and double down into every trope and ritual that you and yours can think of. Decorate that tree! Wear the reindeer ears!

Cook every damn family recipe! Go to church!

Play Twister! Drink Pimm’s! (That could just be me.) Leverage Christmas for a taste of normality and the familiar. That’s what those traditions are for.

The second option is to change things up. If it’s going to be memorable anyway, make it memorable on your terms. So this year I’m thinking I might annoy/include the neighbours. My parents used to always have extra presents under the tree. There was perfume (for the ladies) and whisky (for the gentlemen) – I could see the recipients being reversed given my friendship group – and when people dropped by unexpectedly, my folks were BAM ready to gift give. “Hello *insert acquaintance’s name here* how lovely to see you! Sherry and mince pie? Here, this is for you!” I used to think it odd when I was young, but now I’m like, SURPRISE GIFT, that’s rather excellent.

So I’m going to give gifts to the neighbours.

Might bring a little tape deck, and when they answer the door I’ll hit Neil Diamond’s ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and do a dance. Why not? How splendid. Something to remember!

Fiona is a writer, comedian and cheer leader.

10 DEC 2021

Crackers for Christmas

Christmas is meant to be repetitive and comforting, an embroidering of traditions and rituals that bring us together.

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Fiona

Wes World

by Giovanni Marchini Camia

Giovanni Marchini Camia is a film critic whose writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Sight & Sound, Film Comment and Cinema Scope.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. © 2021 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS

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XXX Film

The XXXFrench Dispatch

In The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson’s vision of France is exactly that – his vision, which did not stop the critics at Cannes loving it.

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET AND LYNA KHOUDRI

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es Anderson’s much-anticipated 10th feature, The French Dispatch, takes place in a fictional French city, which is called – wait for it – Ennui-sur-blasé. “[It’s] 100 per cent Wes Anderson’s vision of either France, or the France that existed, or the France that’s in his head,” says Timothée Chalamet (who is not French), when we speak at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. He’s one of the many, many, many stars who make up the typically jam‑packed ensemble.

But when The French Dispatch premiered at Cannes, the Texan director declined interviews and didn’t hold a press conference – a flouting of protocol that is usually accepted only from fearsome figures like Jean‑Luc Godard, not a director as reputedly amiable as Anderson.

His silence was all the more curious given that The French Dispatch is, at its core, a celebration of journalism.

The films pays homage to two of Anderson’s great loves: longstanding literary periodicals like The New Yorker, and the community of expat writers that blossomed in Paris from the 1920s onwards. The credits dedicate the film to a long list of such figures, including AJ Liebling, James Baldwin and Mavis Gallant, each of whom is represented through a character sharing their personal idiosyncrasies.

What could have been the reason for Anderson’s reticence?

The iconic French actor Mathieu Amalric (back again, after playing the mysterious butler Serge in 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel), hints at a potential explanation: “Last night, before the screening, Wes was so scared to show this film about France. He was asking, ‘Will they accept me?’”

Anderson, who lives in Paris, may have feared that his attempt to portray the country on screen would incite the wrath of the French press – much like their nasty response to Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006), which famously dared put a pair of Converse on those French feet – but au contraire. The premiere was capped by a nine-minute standing ovation, perhaps because no-one could possibly confuse the actual France for the country conjured in Anderson’s imagining.

Indeed, it’s through the eyes – or rather the words – of Americans that we discover the fabulist town and its variously zany goings-on.

The film takes its title from the name of a fictional magazine, closely modelled on The New Yorker but based in France, that is publishing its final issue following the death of its revered founder and editor, Arthur Howitzer Jr (played

by Anderson perennial Bill Murray, whose most recent role for the director was as the voice of the mutt Boss in 2018’s stop‑motion animation Isle of Dogs).

The four chapters that make up the anthology film are articles that appear in this issue, each narrated by their respective author and brought to life in the quirky, minutiae‑crammed, instantly recognisable aesthetic that Anderson has been honing for the past 25 years.

We start with a travel column, courtesy of Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson), who zips through Ennui-sur-blasé on his bicycle, chronicling the city’s history while introducing us to its most colourful denizens, from the ladies of the night to the rats in the sewer.

ACTOR MATHIEU AMALRIC

of police cook Nescaffier (Stephen Park) by food critic Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright) escalates into a madcap adventure when the child of the Police Commissaire (Amalric) is kidnapped by a gang of thugs and cabaret dancers in a ploy to negotiate the release of a mobster accountant fittingly nicknamed The Abacus (Willem Dafoe).

Despite appearances, the above is a highly condensed synopsis! As befits such an ode to wordsmithery, the dialogue and voiceover narration flow at breakneck speed, without a moment of pause. Keeping pace visually, Anderson deploys every stylistic trick he can muster: images switch freely between colour and black and white; the aspect ratio expands and contracts; the camera whips from one meticulous composition to the next; real city streets give way to lovingly crafted miniatures that in turn give way to animated sequences…and on, and on.

TOP: ELISABETH MOSS, OWEN WILSON, TILDA SWINTON, FISHER STEVENS AND GRIFFIN DUNNE MIDDLE: THE AUTEUR HIMSELF BOTTOM: BILL MURRAY, WALLY WOLODARSKY AND JEFFREY WRIGHT

THE FRENCH DISPATCH IS IN CINEMAS.

10 DEC 2021

This is a utopia. But we need utopias, because they can come into the real world.

“Last night at the screening,” says Chalamet, “there were so many things that I wanted to screenshot. And you know people will do that, fans of Wes, like myself, who look at every detail.”

Despite the Where’s Wally?-like viewing experience that results from this hyperkinetic abundance, the actors themselves do not feel overlooked. “As someone who has been chosen by Wes to be in his movie,” says Stephen Park, “you feel like he loves you.”

Which explains why the same A-list actors keep returning, film after film.

The ensemble also boasts Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Lyna Khoudri, Edward Norton, Anjelica Huston, Toheeb Jimoh, Henry Winkler – even if it’s only to be on screen for a few seconds, as keeps happening to Rushmore (1998) lead Jason Schwartzman, briefly glimpsed here as the magazine’s cartoonist.

Perhaps eyeing a future collaboration, Chalamet says, “The desire to work with Wes again is that you’re a texture in the greater tapestry.

You get to be part of that worldview and that’s a dream as an actor.”

By the sound of it, it’s also a lot of fun. The production of The French Dispatch took over the town of Angoulême in southwest France, turning it into a de facto film studio.

Every street served as a shooting location, a disused felt factory became a manufacturing plant where more than 300 craftspeople constructed the many sets and miniatures, and some 900 citizens were employed as extras.

For the cast and crew, the experience of making the film was like being in a collective. “We lived in the same place, we were all paid the same, we had dinner together, there were no private trailers but a common room for everybody,” says Amalric.

According to the actor, this way of working is reflected in the world that is presented on screen, which is why it doesn’t matter that Ennui-sur-blasé is far removed from the real France.

“This is a utopia. But we need utopias, because they can come into the real world. It’s a Wes world, and we thank him for that.”

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Next up, in what Chalamet calls Anderson’s “sincere, very insightful satire of the commercialisation of art,” JKL Berensen (Tilda Swinton) tells the story of Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro), an incarcerated, possibly genius artist whose abstract paintings of his prison guard-cum-muse Simone (Léa Seydoux) catch the eye of the rapacious art dealer Julian Cadazio (Adrien Brody).

In the chapter that follows, inspired by the student protests of May 1968, the article is penned by Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand), who first sleeps with the aspiring revolutionary Zeffirelli (Chalamet) and then writes his manifesto for him. Finally, a profile

Zoë Foster Blake

Beauty guru, entrepreneur, writer: Zoë Foster Blake is a master juggler. But when it comes to making space for writing, she just can’t help it.

by Brodie Lancaster @brodielancaster

Brodie Lancaster is a writer and critic from Melbourne. She is the author of the 2017 memoir No Way! Okay, Fine.

PHOTO BY HAMISH BLAKE

Books THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

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Just Zoë You Know

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hen Zoë Foster Blake carves time out of her life to write a new book, it’s a thrilling, indulgent and almost adulterous pursuit.

“For me, married with children, it’s an illicit affair.

A fiction idea is like someone I’m dying to hang out with and I’m not allowed to because I never get the time,” she says.

It’s no wonder. The author of more than a dozen books including novels, essay collections, kids books and beauty guides; the face of a new Tourism Australia campaign alongside her comedian husband, Hamish; a mother of two; and the founder of skincare brand Go-To, Foster Blake is a master juggler, and focusing her attention on just one brightly coloured ball is a big ask.

It’s the kids books that have been her focus in recent years, No-one Likes a Fart (2017) and this year’s sequel, Fart and Burp Are Superstinkers.

The idea for the lonely, hopeful little cloud of noxious gas seeking out its place in life came to her when her husband and their then-two‑year‑old son Sonny “were farting their butts off during post‑shower madness. I said something like, ‘Oh come on, nobody likes a fart,’ and my son said, ‘That’s not nice Mummy; we don’t say that.’

I thought, Yes! It’s not his fault he stinks!”

At university she studied children’s literature.

It’d be a sweet bit of retroactive foreshadowing for her future career, if not for the reality: “It was the only course I failed.”

From there, she moved into journalism, writing for magazines before landing at Cosmopolitan as beauty director. The readers she amassed there – and on her blog called Fruitybeauty – have followed her every move since. And it hasn’t just been her expertise in skincare or night-time battles with her kids that have influenced her writing.

A series of popular women’s fiction titles were Foster Blake’s launching pad, and they all grew from real seeds. “I wrote a book about being a beauty editor [Air Kisses (2008)] when I was one, or dating a footballer [Playing the Field (2010)] when I was, working in TV [The Wrong Girl (2014), which was adapted for TV in 2016] when I was – I think it’s basic stuff, but it’s good to write what you know.

Don’t squander it.”

That motto is guiding her next moves as a writer.

She hints at a non-fiction project about the inner workings of Go-To Skincare. But her dream project – that illicit affair she goes to sleep thinking of – is literary fiction. “I actually adore writing fiction.

I haven’t done it for about eight years, children’s

books aside, and I really miss it because it was a total escape. It was like a friend. Just sinking into fiction for that luxurious, year-long project…” We get almost misty-eyed, the two of us, sitting over Zoom, imagining a schedule free of deadlines that would allow one to focus solely on a single creative task for that long.

But Foster Blake is determined, if only because she knows everything she does begins with a good idea. And at home with her family, finding those are worthy of proclamation.

“We’ve got this rule, my husband and I, where we don’t share an idea for 24 hours because you can kill it. So, you know, if I’ve written a story or outline, I’m so excited to tell him about it, but I have to wait until the next day. And then the next day I’m always like, ‘Eh, don’t worry about it’.

Unless it’s really good. Then it gets a second shot.”

Once it sticks, it’s worth pursuing. Until then: “There’s many, many duds in my Dropbox of shitty, shitty ideas. But every shitty idea gets me closer to a good one.”

SCAREDY BATH IS OUT NOW.

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“No-one Likes a Fart was actually about finding your people. And I think if I went into it with that earnest [tone] – like, trying to have a message – I would fuck it up. But sometimes the heart just comes out inadvertently. You let the reader find it; I don’t think you should tell them what it is.”

Her latest, Scaredy Bath, builds out a host of quirks and worries for the humble tub, who lives in nervous fear of the stampede of tiny, grubby feet that come its way each night. While she describes her own kids – Sonny, now seven, and four-year‑old Rudy – as the “toughest crowd” to test new books on (“That’s good; it keeps you grounded”), they are fans of Mum’s work. “Scaredy Bath is the only book [Rudy has] requested and actually wanted to read a few times in a row.”

Foster Blake’s home and family have always been influences. Her dad was a writer and, throughout her upbringing in rural New South Wales, he tried his best to steer her away from following in his footsteps, telling her, “There’s no money in it. You’ll get bored.” She dreamed of working in advertising and specialising in sharp, punchy copy. (Fans of her skincare brand will recognise this; never before has cleanser had such a vivid personality.)

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But sometimes the heart just comes out inadvertently. You let the reader find it; I don’t think you should tell them what it is.

Viggo Mortensen

Small Screens

Personally Speaking It’s been a long road to the director’s chair for Viggo Mortensen. Here he talks family, memory, his debut feature Falling – and the film’s real-life foundations.

by Simon Bland @sitweetstoo

Simon Bland is a freelance entertainment journalist based in Manchester, UK.

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I wanted to explore what I felt and feel about my parents, what I learned from them.

FALLING IS RELEASED DIGITALLY ON 15 DECEMBER.

10 DEC 2021

worse,” suggests Mortensen, reflecting on his childhood and how memories of his youth inspired Falling’s more personal elements. “After my mother passed away, I was thinking a lot about my childhood – and about my mom especially. But I also thought about my dad, their dynamic, and my shared upbringing with my two brothers.

“The story [of Falling] quickly became fictional but its foundations – the feelings about real events, as far as I remember them – were real. The story is made up and Lance’s character is made up, but I wanted to explore what I felt and feel about my parents, what I learned from them.”

Mortensen also uses the film to flip the question back at viewers, inviting them to project their own story onto his.

As John’s surly and increasingly confused father, 81-year‑old screen veteran Henriksen portrays a man viciously at odds with his son’s homosexuality. This, too, causes tension that may be all too relatable for some viewers.

“Lance was relating on a personal level based on experiences different from the story,” says Mortensen, “but there was an emotional connection with his own past.

“When we finally got to make the movie, we found, to our pleasant surprise, that the cast and crew kept telling us stories about their own families. That made us feel like we were on the right track and telling a story with universal relevance,” he says.

As Willis’ memory worsens, we glimpse snippets of John’s childhood and the foundations of his now complicated relationship with his father. Brutal and ambiguous, Mortensen’s take on a disease that affects countless families again had personal roots.

“Most stories about dementia or Alzheimer’s are from the outside – you’re observing someone who’s clearly confused.

I hadn’t seen it done credibly from their point of view. I’ve had up-close caring experience with people with dementia: my parents, my grandfather and stepfather, from beginning to end. One thing I was aware of is that unless you bring it to their attention, they’re often not confused at all.

“I wanted to use image and sound to get inside Willis’ head to show that he’s seeing something very clearly – and sometimes it’s quite beautiful. I don’t like telling the audience what to see. I wanted to let them see and hear what they will.”

Mortensen’s choice to make the personal core of his movie accessible to all has paid off. It’s particularly noticeable during moments of unexpected humour connected to Willis’ deterioration. “Story-wise, it’s a relief and I think it’s quite human.” He says a little levity can sometimes help us cope under extreme pressure.

“I’ve shown the movie to audiences and done Q&As here in Spain. It’s a different country with a different language and yet I get the same observations and questions from audience members who are personally relating it to their own families. There was something at stake for them when they were watching the story and making it their own – and I love that.”

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COURTESY OF BIG ISSUE NORTH/INSP.NGO. PHOTO BY GETTY

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cloud of grey cigarette smoke swirls around Viggo Mortensen’s face, making it difficult to see the Hollywood star during our video chat. The sunlight peeking through the curtains behind his head isn’t helping either. Mortensen’s at home in Madrid, and the late afternoon sun is doing its best to further obscure his face from view. For someone who’s spent most of his adult life lighting up cinemas, it sure feels like he’s trying hard to hide.

Maintaining a certain mystique seems important to the actor, poet, artist, musician, author and, now, filmmaker.

His directorial debut Falling blends aspects of his own childhood with impassioned threads of fiction. It stars Mortensen as John: a gay man, husband and father whose family life is turned upside down when he’s forced to care for his archaic and deeply prejudiced father, Willis (Lance Henriksen, Aliens), who’s battling dementia. As these two worlds collide, neither cigarette smoke nor sunbeams can prevent audiences from peeking inside aspects of Mortensen’s personal life. Yet when I speak to him about it, he’s still keen to keep things cryptic.

“I first tried to direct a movie about four years ago,” he says. “I raised some of the money but not enough – and that happened repeatedly with different scripts, even Falling.”

Mortensen’s struggles getting his passion project off the ground illustrate just how laborious and unpredictable filmmaking can be. Despite becoming a household name as sword-wielding king Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s epic adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, fame did little to catalyse his directing dreams.

“I guess I’ve been wanting and trying to do this for at least a quarter of a century. Finally, we were able to make this one and I’m really glad Lance could do it with me.”

In the years since he saved Middle Earth, Mortensen has cultivated a reputation as a different kind of leading man. With his silver hair, sharp features and piercing blue eyes, he’s delivered a range of challenging, unexpected and memorable performances with an array of top directors.

Horror auteur David Cronenberg made us fear him in A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007) before showing us his intellectual side, casting him as Sigmund Freud in A Dangerous Method (2011).

In 2016, Mortensen played a troubled father struggling to raise his kids off-grid in Matt Ross’s touching Captain Fantastic. In 2018 he received his third Academy Award nomination for his turn as the crass yet endearing chauffeur Tony Lip in Peter Farrelly’s controversial Oscar winner, Green Book.

Born in New York City to an American mother and Danish father, Mortensen spent his early years flitting between Venezuela, Denmark and Argentina before moving back to the US, aged 11, following his parents’ divorce. As a result of this peripatetic period, he speaks Danish, French, Spanish and English fluently, and it may be why, unlike most Hollywood stars, he’s more at home living in Madrid, with his wife, the Spanish actor Ariadna Gil. “I suppose anything that happens to you, whether you travel or not, has an impact in your life, for better or for

Milan Ring

Music

Ring, Leader After a period of intense introversion, R&B artist Milan Ring is feeling hopeful about her debut record.

@art_workr

Sabina McKenna is an Australian writer and curator. She is the creator of the Where Are You From? project, a photojournalistic series about cultural identity.

PHOTO BY JAMES EVANS

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by Sabina McKenna

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have always wanted to do an album, but prior to this I was doing a lot of exploring [musically],” says Sydney‑based musician Milan Ring of her debut album. “I definitely had enough to throw something together, but that wasn’t the type of album that I wanted to create. What’s beautiful about this is the long-form narrative. Each song is tied together. It’s a whole journey.”

A culmination of personal challenges and testing moments, I’m Feeling Hopeful sees the singer, rapper, writer, guitarist, producer and director of her own music label MXMAY traverse a range of sounds to explore trauma, addiction and identity. Sonically, R&B, hip-hop and neo-soul come together with Ring’s signature guitar, which she says features on “almost every song”. And while the material for this record is drawn from her personal experiences, Ring uses metaphor to tackle the more intimate themes, like self-medicating in ‘Hide With You’ and desire in ‘Pick Me Up’.

Though the songwriting started before lockdown, when Ring was in a newfound space of self-determination and buried deep in her music, the process really took off when the world came to a standstill.

“What happened [during] lockdown was a lot of [introspection]. Unpacking all of that definitely

identity, to hear all that [racial] rhetoric. I got lost from it. Within that you have the mixed-race thing, where you’re not fully Indian and you’re not fully Chinese – you’re not fully anything.”

This journey to self-discovery makes itself known throughout the album. “The more I’ve grown, the more I feel connected to that as part of my identity, and for the first time, I feel proud of it.

I realised that all of these things just make up my unique layers.”

On the cover of the album is Ring sitting with her guitar “in the middle of a dark space” that alludes to her life, “with all these hands coming out at me, tempting me and offering me different things”. The artwork is gold and brown, and features several different mudras, or hand gestures, which Ring curated with the help of the South Asian art collective Bindi Bosses.

Each of the mudras speak to the themes in the songs. “Mudra is Sanskrit for gesture, so they’re all ancient symbols, and different types often shown in dance,” Ring explains. Curating the artwork revealed a deeper connection to Ring’s cultural heritage through an ancient Hindu deity called Saraswati.

“For years, I was obsessed with this goddess Saraswati, who represents a lot of things, among them being music, dance and poetry. Once I was

digging more into my heritage, I found out I was from the Saraswat Brahmin lineage, basically the [ethnic group] who worshipped the deity Saraswati – that just blew my mind.”

So how is Ring feeling now that the record is complete, after lockdown and after spending time uncovering some of the darkest corners of herself?

She says it feels good to move towards a new chapter without so much baggage.

“I think I’ve emerged as a stronger, wiser, more present person. I have more courage to be open and vulnerable in everything that I do. That will always be how it comes out in my music,” she says.

“Where am I heading? Out of the chaos and the darkness; I’m definitely exploring what it means to be less burdened and less heavy. That’s how the album ends: with the feeling of forgiveness of self and of others.”

I’M FEELING HOPEFUL IS OUT NOW.

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intensified during the pandemic,” says Ring. “I was so busy the year before lockdown. I did the most gigs I’ve ever done and was getting ready to go to Europe and the UK. I remember thinking to myself, You are tired, but I just kept going. I was running.

And then once we stopped, I realised I had nothing to run from anymore. So the album is definitely a big deal in that regard – a big journal entry.”

This album is also an investigation of Ring’s cultural identity, which was in part inspired by the first time we met: at a photoshoot in 2019 for the photojournalism project Where Are You From?

“Meeting so many beautiful people of colour exploring their cultural identity and what it means to be mixed race in Australia triggered me to do that myself,” Ring explains. “Growing up in this country, I definitely rejected my cultural background. I would hear things like, ‘Oh, you’re a good Asian’ because I had an Australian accent.

It’s hard when you’re young and figuring out your

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I think I’ve emerged as a stronger, wiser, more present person. I have more courage to be open and vulnerable in everything that I do.

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

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ome Boxing Day, you will find me camped inside the cinema, wearing a grin that stretches from Melbourne to Woolloomooloo.

The annual day of cine-celebration sees a slate of big movies arriving. For the kiddies, there’s the 10-foot, tomato-red puppy shenanigans of Clifford the Big Red Dog, and the koala-led, animated song-and-dance stage reunion that is Sing 2. An even bigger musical extravaganza comes in the shape of Steven Spielberg’s much-anticipated remake of West Side Story – though how anyone could ever match Natalie Wood’s irresistible turn in the 1961 film version (streaming on Stan) is unimaginable to me.

For those feeling nostalgic, there’s the fourth Matrix outing that no‑one knew we needed – as well as Licorice Pizza, the great Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest sun-kissed take on the seismic cultural changes sweeping LA in the 1970s, blessed with a soundtrack of period bangers, and a cast including Alana Haim, Bradley Cooper and Tom Waits.

For me, the pick of the slate is Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, a millennial rom-com that left me drenched in tears. There’s all-round extraordinary performances – especially from magnetic newcomer Renate Reinsve as an impulsive, indecisive 30-year-old in Oslo, trying to make sense of her life. And then, a gift to usher in the New Year: Lady Gaga stars as Patrizia Reggiani in the haute couture crime drama House of Gucci (out 1 January). ABB

’TIS THE SKI-SON

UNDINE 

Berlin’s haunted geography collides with the mythological tale of the water nymph destined to kill any man who deceives her (which lends the film its title) in German director Christian Petzold’s latest, a slippery film of strange, subterranean romance. Paula Beer is brilliantly ghostly in the titular role, a historian who spends her days speaking to tourists about the city’s urban development, surrounded by miniature models and recreations of ruins. This world of replicas and spectres is mirrored in her romances. First with the smarmy Johannes, who breaks it off despite Undine’s pleas (“If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you”), then with the devoted deep-sea diver Christoph (played by Franz Rogowski, reuniting with Beer after Petzold’s acclaimed 2018 film Transit). A tragedy sets the trio down an ill-fated path, as Petzold deploys both melodrama and the supernatural to tease out intangible questions about possession, evocation and history doomed to repeat. ISABELLA TRIMBOLI THE LOST DAUGHTER

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Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Venice prize-winning directorial debut is a polished adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s 2008 novel of the same name, offering a clear-eyed take on the emotional rollercoaster that is motherhood in all its anxiety-inducing twists, whispered dark private turns and surprising, sometimes brutal U-bends. Olivia Colman delivers a characteristically big-hearted lead performance as Leda Caruso, a professor on what should be a blissful solo working holiday on an idyllic Greek island. But encounters with a struggling young mother (Dakota Johnson) from a neighbouring vacationing family spark a flood of memories, and the past comes crashing in.

Flashbacks to domestic family scenes show the young Leda (played by a fantastically frazzled Jessie Buckley) trying to juggle life with her two daughters and a nascent academic career. A lurking disquiet beats at the heart of this cruel-compassionate drama, as Leda shares moments of kinship with several young mothers, each fighting to stay afloat. ANNABEL BRADY-BROWN

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Mia Hansen-Løve makes films that turn the personal into the universal. Eden (2014) mined her brother’s experiences as a DJ, and Things to Come (2016) took inspiration from her academic mother. In her seventh feature, she shifts focus inwards. Filmmaker Chris (Vicky Krieps) finds writing to be a “self-inflicted torture”, a condition her partner Tony (Tim Roth), a successful director, doesn’t easily relate to. Together, they travel to the Swedish island of Fårö, where Ingmar Bergman lived and worked. Surrounded by Bergman’s ghosts, fiction blends into reality as Chris recounts her new script idea to Tony: a tale of impossible love (a film within a film starring Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie) that suddenly comes to life on screen. A complex, self-reflexive work, Bergman Island could have been a pretentious misfire in different hands, but Hansen-Løve lends the film the right combination of expressive emotion, visual splendour and intelligent observation to make it soar. JESSICA ELLICOTT

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE  | 15 DEC, DVD + VOD

FRAMED

 | 17 DEC, STAN

 | 26 DEC, SBS ON DEMAND

If recent circumstances haven’t dampened your appetite for pandemic fiction, you could certainly do worse than Patrick Somerville’s (The Leftovers) adaptation of Station Eleven.

Both the show and the acclaimed novel from Emily St John Mandel adopt a kaleidoscopic approach to storytelling, flickering between a colourful cast of characters and time periods to track the devastation wrought by a flu. Director Hiro Murai (Atlanta) thankfully sidesteps the austerity expected of similar material, approaching civilisation’s demise with a gently surreal touch. One plotline follows Jeevan (Himesh Patel, Yesterday), an empathetic cultural critic (we exist!) who finds himself caring for a young girl just as the pandemic hits; another leaps 20 years into the post-apocalypse and centres on Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis, Blade Runner 2049), an actor in a nomadic Shakespearean troupe. Its sprawling plotting occasionally tangles itself into knots, but the idiosyncratic perspectives offered by Station Eleven carve out a delightfully off-kilter journey to the end of the world – and back. JAMIE TRAM

It starts with a ransom letter: Weeping Woman, a lesser-loved Picasso, brazenly stolen from the biggest gallery in Melbourne.

The thief’s demands? More arts funding in Victoria. Over four cheeky episodes, Framed unravels the intrigue behind this extremely Melbourne, extremely 80s art heist. Come for the spectacle of low-stakes institutional incompetence, stay for the still-juicy art-world drama. Charmingly hosted by The Feed’s Marc Fennell and with schmick production values, this miniseries is delightfully willing to poke fun at self-seriousness everywhere: in the arts, policing, politics (or all three, since the Minister for Arts was also the Minister for Police – a sensible portfolio). Like all the best documentaries, the motivating questions – whodunnit, and why? – are ultimately just a window into something more interesting: what makes a city “cultured” and why do many Australian institutions and gallery-goers only look outwards for hallmarks? Framed is a portrait of a city simultaneously obsessed with culture, and totally self-conscious about it. HASSAN KALAM ABUL

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here’s no time like December to giddily remember that this is Mariah Carey’s festive world – we’re just living in it. I, for one, welcome the annual coming of the Christmas queen, the glittering angel on Earth, who has blessed us with another holiday musical extravaganza, Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues.

It joins her 2020 gift to the masses, Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special, under the tree on Apple TV+. In the singer’s own words, “I can’t not celebrate Christmas with the world.” May we be all the merrier for it this silly season.

Another powerhouse talent on my mind right now is Rita Moreno. The triple threat turns 90 this month, and is the subject of a new documentary, Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It. The film charts the star’s 70-year career as a Broadway and Hollywood icon who surmounted poverty, sexism and racism to become the first Latinx person to bag the hallowed EGOT (an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony).

After winning the Oscar in 1962 for her formidable turn as Anita in West Side Story – a film I watched religiously as a kid, riveted

by Moreno’s magnetic screen presence – she won her first Emmy in 1977, honouring her guest role on The Muppet Show. The episode is still one of my favourites, as Moreno is given free rein to send up her reputation as a hot-headed combatant: a racist stereotype expunged in Mariem Pérez Riera’s celebratory doco, set for digital release on 15 December. AK

10 DEC 2021

STATION ELEVEN

MARIAH’S MAKING YOUR WISH COME TRUE

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Cult hit The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) was a rarity for its time – a teen horror written and directed by women.

Its self-aware script, penned by Rita Mae Brown (author of lesbian classic Rubyfruit Jungle), was uniquely attuned to the rhythms and tensions within female relationships. Due to studio interference, however, the film ended up a stock-standard slasher about a drill-wielding man-child terrorising a group of girls in their pyjamas. Danishka Esterhazy’s (The Banana Splits) remake ramps up the parodic spirit. This time around, the teens are recast as trope-conscious survivalists who love knives, recalling the chirpy and vengeful heroines of Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007). Esterhazy often struggles to balance the didactic girl-power thrust with the demands of the genre – none of the scares are particularly scary, even when they aim to be. But it’s hard to resist this charming dose of schlocky plot twists, wry callbacks and increasingly gnarly kills, all packaged into a trim and propulsive 86-minute runtime. CLAIRE CAO

Music Reviews

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YULE LOVE SUFJAN’S CHRISTMAS ALBUMS

t’s that time of year again. Shops are blasting Mariah. Michael Bublé is getting a criminal amount of radio play. Every pop star with diminishing status is putting out their latest cash-grab: a dull Christmas album. Airwaves and playlists are full of schmaltz, cheer and pure cheese.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. There are plenty of great modern Christmas albums that go beyond cliches and corniness. Here are a few favourites.

In a surprise to no-one, Sufjan Stevens loves Christmas, and his mammoth 42-song record Songs for Christmas (2006), and his even bigger 58-song Silver & Gold (2012), are some of the best seasonal offerings out there.

There is frankly nothing more satisfying than hearing Stevens’ soft, pure vocals sing Christmas standards, 16th-century carols and his original festive additions. Put on these two albums back-to-back and you’ll have Christmas lunch and dinner covered.

Enya, reclusive castle dweller and dreamy musical mastermind, put out a compilation of her Christmas covers and originals, Christmas Secrets, in 2019. Heavenly, celestial and a little bit brooding, Enya understands the moods of the season very well. Highlights include the beautiful ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ which is filled with plenty of Enya flourishes – organs and a web of vocals that replicate a church choir. Then there’s ‘Silent Night’, – Enya doesn’t play much with the song structure or traditional arrangement, but her angelic voice elevates the song to new, ethereal heights. IT

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor @itrimboli

FROM SQUATS TO LOTS: THE AGONY AND XTC OF LOW LIFE LOW LIFE 

Low Life are a Sydney band best described as punk, but their chorus-drenched guitars drip with a dread deeper than tired genre cliches. Committed to detailing a down-and-out lifestyle, Low Life’s latest album From Squats to Lots: The Agony and XTC of Low Life is no exception. The opulent title, referencing Irving Stones’ novel about Michelangelo, is unabashedly self-mythologising. Tracks like ‘Still Here’ play out the legacy of a band who’ve fought for their place, singer Mitch Tolman finishing the song with a dedication to “all the fallen lads and lasses” while also calling out “all you gatekeepers and toys, all you gronks”. This drama is mirrored in their dense sound, adding orchestral flourishes and acoustic guitar amid the din, a post-punk wall of sound recorded in a cave. Appropriately, many songs don’t foreground Tolman’s guttural drawl, instead burying it in a chant of various singers, the group’s own outsider family. In the clash of agony and ecstasy, Low Life have created joy amid pain, forging a standout punk record of 2021. ANGUS MCGRATH

RED (TAYLOR’S VERSION)

O.K.

TAYLOR SWIFT

MO’JU

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At the crux of Taylor Swift lore – beyond the tales of exclusive listening parties for diehard fans and rumours of Sapphic trysts with supermodels – lies the song ‘All Too Well’. Initially released in 2012 as a track on Red, it has been hailed as Swift’s magnum opus, the best exemplar of her specific dexterities: turning diaristic details into break-up extravaganzas with little more than soft harmonies soaked with salty tears. It’s no wonder, then, that Red (Taylor’s Version) – the second instalment of her six-part project to reclaim her earlier albums from the grips of a greedy foe – is built around a 10-minute version of ‘All Too Well’. But what should be a broken-hearted epic instead sounds staid – a feeling symptomatic of this entire album, where Swift’s newly mature vocals strip her originals of their plaintive, angsty quality which made them so gripping. The intention here is admirable, but – unlike its predecessor Fearless (Taylor’s Version) – this iteration of Red lends little hindsight. MICHAEL SUN

The follow-up to her outstanding 2018 album Native Tongue – which saw the Melbournebased artist interrogate Australian colonial myths, explore identity and belonging, and tell her family’s stories through a melding of modern blues, soul and R&B – O.K. is Mo’Ju at her most experimental and introspective.

The self-described mini-album is quieter, more intimate and subdued, and sees the singer-songwriter again collaborate with Henry Jenkins and Lewis Coleman. While Native Tongue was a defiant, bold and highly polished record, here Mo’Ju lets songs stretch out and meander in the best possible way, playing with beat arrangements and drenching songs in plenty of reverb. Tackling sadness, loneliness and alienation, O.K. soars when delving into dreamy jazz territory, like the wonderful two-minute track ‘Pissing in the Wind’, or woozy, lo-fi R&B number ‘Okay’. It’s a fascinating and surprising left turn for one of this country’s most challenging and unique artists. ISABELLA TRIMBOLI

Book Reviews

Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor @melissajfulton

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EVERYTHING, ALL AT ONCE ANTHOLOGY

HOW WE LOVE CLEMENTINE FORD

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A fresh and dynamic collection, Everything, All at Once anthologises 30 pieces of poetry and fiction by the winners of the inaugural Ultimo Prize for emerging writers under 30. As writer Franklyn Hudson comments in their poem ‘They’, a meditation on the complexities of gender and coming out, the best writing is produced by authors who are unafraid to examine their fears. In keeping with our current climate of heightened anxiety, many of the writers featured in Everything, All at Once have taken up this challenge. The result is a generous and honest collection of work that deftly negotiates topics like identity, alienation and impermanence. Thoughtful reflections on race, ancestry, family and childhood run prominently throughout the anthology, as do investigations into what constitutes a home. This compelling selection of new Australian voices highlights why we must write (and read) about our anxieties and uncertainties – not necessarily to overcome them, but to uncover truth and beauty in their interrogation. RUBY HILLSMITH

In How We Love feminist writer and thinker Clementine Ford carefully turns the concept of love over in her hands, examining the ways she has been made, held and sometimes broken by it. Ford’s earlier work is more theoretical, unpacking feminism and masculinity using a variety of frameworks, including personal essays as well as research, analysis and interviews. How We Love is pure memoir, the tone is far more reflective, the content more intimate, the writing bravely tender. The collection is short and conversational, peppered with recognisable cultural touchstones for readers coming of age in the 80s and 90s. Ford balances a fond nostalgia with critical hindsight as she explores those significant, aching moments of discovering love – for a child, a mother, a friend, a lover and, finally, the self. As Ford says in the opening pages, “falling in love is really about discovering yourself and who you are”. How We Love is an ode to that discovery. BEC

PERMAFROST SJ NORMAN 

SJ Norman’s debut collection of short stories, Permafrost, gives voice to the sounds, smells, temperature and grit that inscribe SJ Norman’s being and cling to their dreams. Part autofiction, part Australian gothic, the collection begins with ‘Stepmother’, where a teenaged Norman carves out time where they can, holding their breath in a hotel pool. In ‘Hinterhaus’, when stirred by the hand flourishes of a moody goth, Norman recreates the gesture dancing to ‘My Baby Thinks She’s a Train’ by The Triffids – perfectly encapsulating the experience of loving someone who has moved on. Along with honouring relations, Norman celebrates taking time and space to experience loneliness. In ‘Unspeakable’, they visit a place too occupied by history to experience alone, while ‘Playback’ sees Norman return to the town inscribed with the hard, chipped memories of their mother – Norman’s own experiences of abuse form a relationship with their mother’s on the page, and Norman is left with things to hold and trace.

Readers will grow from travelling in and with Permafrost. MEGAN PAYNE

KAVANAGH

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XXX META IS BETTER: LOUISE ERDRICH

10 DEC 2021

ulitzer Prize-winning Louise Erdrich’s latest novel The Sentence is a meta affair. Spanning the year from All Souls’ Day 2019 to the same day in 2020, the book follows hero Tookie: a bibliophile with a chequered past who, after a stint in jail, gets a job at a little Minneapolis bookstore. Erdrich herself owns a little Minneapolis bookstore, Birchbark Books, and Tookie’s boss in the novel is, well, a writer named Louise. When the bookshop is visited by the ghost of its “most annoying favourite customer” Flora, Tookie is tasked with resolving the mystery while coming to terms with a truly astonishing year.

The Sentence is an expansive and big-hearted book, haunted by the spectre of the pandemic, police violence and the murder of George Floyd. Tookie marries the ex-Tribal Police officer who previously arrested her, and some of the book’s most powerful moments explore the tenderness and tensions in their relationship.

Ultimately though, from the “murderous intent” of Tookie’s own reading to the hundred-odd references to books and authors on its pages, The Sentence is a celebration of books themselves, their capacity to steel us through grief, loneliness, confusion and moral reckoning. If you’re looking for some holiday reading, the “Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favourite Books” at the novel’s end covers everything from “short perfect novels” to “books for banned love”. Of course, both Tookie and Erdrich want you to buy them from your local independent bookshop. MF

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

I don’t want to make out like my usual factory settings are “robot”. I do tell my loved ones that I love them. But something about how vulnerable I felt made me see the everyday in a different light. And when you think about it, everyday stuff is kind of astonishing.

The sun, as it came through my window, had to slide past the venetian blinds. Why is it that, when it’s morning, those stripes on the wall look sharp and bright and neat and businesslike and promising and ready for anything, and at the end of the day they invoke a vague sense of loss or nostalgia?

When you look at a cup of tea, from the prone position, the way to tell if it’s a hot cup of tea is to squint in just the right way and see the hint of steam rising from it. Almost like it’s alive. Almost like it’s making a sound. It’s moving, if it’s hot enough, like a signal. Like someone in there is waving a flag. A message from the person who made it, to you. A gift.

Water is truly incredible. Ever just think about water?

Yes, I do realise I sound like I’m under the influence of

something other than the tail end of a lingering illness, but water is transformative for humans, isn’t it? A shower. A bath. A swim. Kids under a sprinkler. A long, tall glass of it. These can change us in ways I’m not sure science has quite covered.

Where science hasn’t explained things, though, let us praise the arts. Let us praise the orchestral crescendo and the glorious pause. Let us praise trashy movies and beautifully crafted TV dramas. Here’s to the book reading and the poem read aloud on YouTube at a festival on the other side of the world, which for some reason goes viral and suddenly you know the name of a Spanish poet you’d never heard of. Let us praise art galleries and TikToks and how much you can care about two people on TV who work really well together as a team despite being constantly undermined by management in a hospital or a police station or whatever, even though you know they’re completely made up by a group of people you will never meet.

Have you noticed how brilliant it is to give yourself a tiny treat? Like, really tiny. Like changing your sheets and making your bed and having it to crawl into despite the mess of the day? Or taking a moment, a little secret between you and the universe, to do a small thing like having a cup of coffee in the morning sun, uninterrupted.

Recently, I watched a woman in work clothes walking away from the city. She had headphones on. She was doing the middle-distance stare most CBD workers do when they’re out and about, but then she stopped, on the footpath, at the edge of the park, and removed her shoes. She continued walking with her shoes in her hand. Despite the task at hand, despite the everyday ordinariness of walking home with headphones in, she was treating herself to some grass beneath her bare feet.

Public Service Announcement: the everyday is all around us. That’s why we don’t notice how full of everything it is. Notice the steam off the cuppa. Take off your shoes. Treat yourself.

Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The new series of her radio and podcast series, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

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I

’ve been sick with a flu-type illness lately and it hasn’t been pleasant, but I noticed something as I was starting to feel better.

There was a moment, when I wasn’t quite better but I almost was, where somebody in charge of the control panel somewhere turned all my emotions up to 11.

It was like a cresting wave. I cried watching a TikTok. I told people far too sincerely how much I loved them as they wandered past my sick bed trying to find a phone charger or fetch a book or bring me a cup of tea. A friend texted me the words “get well soon” and I thought about sending her flowers.

I realise we don’t want all our emotions turned up to 11 all the time but this experience did remind me that some people must feel emotional like this all the time. And others must have never felt anything like the emotions I feel on a normal day. Brains are wired differently. Imagine trying on someone else’s filter for a moment.

Public Service Announcement: maybe we should turn some of our emotional responses up to 11 for a bit.

See what it changes.

10 DEC 2021

Everyday, People

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY BY WILLIAM MEPPEM

Matt Preston

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

Tastes Like Home 50

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A Trifle Peach Melba

Ingredients 600ml thickened cream 180g white chocolate, finely chopped 2 × 85g packets raspberry jelly 2½ cups (625ml) boiling water 375g raspberries 460g bought round double unfilled vanilla sponge cake ¼ cup (60ml) peach schnapps 700g can (or tub) peaches in syrup, drained 2 fresh peaches, cut into thick wedges

Custard 1½ cups (375ml) milk 1 vanilla bean, split lengthways, seeds scraped 3 egg yolks ½ cup (110g) caster sugar ¼ cup (35g) plain flour

Sugared flaked almonds ½ cup (40g) flaked almonds 2 tablespoons caster sugar salt

Method

TAG US WITH YOUR CHRISTMAS CREATION! @BIGISSUEAUSTRALIA #TASTESLIKEHOME

T

hey were magical things those trifles of my youth, larger than the average preppie’s head and in a glass bowl that displayed all the different layers like that clear, plastic-fronted ant farm in 2C’s classroom.

Growing up, trifles were as sure a sign of celebration as the fridge being magically full of cold beer and wine, and my old man ironing a shirt.

Just as sure as the ritual of stirring the Christmas pudding, were the rigid steps that took us to being confronted by that Everest of cream, custard, jelly and sponge.

Making a trifle was a labour of love back then; it still is. It was a task that could be spread out over three days and started with clearing the fridge for the large, high, glass bowl. Then the jelly; that always took too long to set.

Next soaking the sponge in cheap sherry, which always felt as if it was solely done so the old man could make inappropriate jokes about tipsy maiden aunts; gags that were as old, frayed and (too often) recycled as the cracked baubles and mangy tinsel on the scrawny Christmas tree.

It was the upper layers of the trifle, however, that provided the most interest. Mainly in terms of the bowls to be licked clean by us small children, always circling the kitchen in search of scraps. But also, those pillowy white waves on top were a creamy summer surf crying out to be dived into; dived down through, and deeper, down into rich custard, soggy sponge and the fruity spring of that jelly below.

The first recorded trifle appeared at the 1554 nuptial feast that launched the rather unhappy marriage between England’s “bloody” Queen Mary and Philip of Spain. It was based on a Spanish dish of “drunken cake” presented by the king emperor’s cooks. For this recipe, however, I’ve married the trifle with a famous dessert from a more romantic meal.

When Dame Nellie Melba’s lover Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans threw a grand dinner at The Savoy in London to celebrate her triumphant new season at the Royal Opera House, chef Auguste Escoffier created the Peach Melba in her honour. Raspberry and peaches play beautifully here, too, with vanilla custard, a billowy white chocolate cream and a little peach schnapps on the sponge!

MATT PRESTON’S NEW COOKBOOK WORLD OF FLAVOUR IS OUT NOW.

10 DEC 2021

PLAN TO RECREATE THIS TRIFLE AT HOME?

Matt says…

51

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Start by making a white chocolate cream. Place the cream and chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl.

Microwave on high, stirring every minute, for 2-4 minutes or until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside for 1 hour to cool slightly, then cover and place in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight to thicken and chill.

Place the jelly crystals in a heatproof bowl. Add the boiling water and stir until the crystals dissolve. Set aside for 1 hour to cool. Pour into a 23cm (3.75 litre) straight-sided trifle bowl. Add 250g of the raspberries.

Place in the fridge for 4 hours to set.

To make the custard, combine the milk, vanilla bean and seeds in a saucepan. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes over medium heat or until mixture almost comes to a simmer. Remove from the heat, cover and set aside for 5 minutes to infuse. Discard the vanilla bean.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy, then whisk in the flour until well combined. Gradually whisk in the milk mixture. Place the mixture in a clean saucepan over medium heat.

Cook, stirring, for 4-5 minutes or until the mixture boils and thickens. Pour into a heatproof bowl, cover the surface with plastic wrap and place into the fridge for 2 hours to cool completely.

While the custard cools, make the sugared almonds.

Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place the almonds in a frying pan. Cook over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until they start to toast. Sprinkle the almonds with the sugar and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until the sugar dissolves and coats the almonds. Transfer to the lined tray and sprinkle with salt. Set aside to cool and harden.

Trim the top and bottom off the sponges to remove the brown crust. Cut one sponge in half to make two semicircles. Place on top of the jelly and pull apart to fit snugly against the walls of the bowl. Cut a wedge from the remaining sponge to neatly fit into the gap left over so you have an even layer. Drizzle the sponge with the peach schnapps and top with the canned peaches. Drizzle with the cooled custard.

Use electric beaters to beat the chilled white chocolate cream until firm peaks form.

Spoon on top of the trifle. Top with the fresh peaches and remaining raspberries.

Sprinkle with the sugared almonds.

Puzzles

By Lingo!

by Lee Murray lee.am.murray@gmail.com EASY

CLUES 5 letters Exhausted Latest fashion Official decree Perceived Recording device

52

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

6 letters Magazine chief Mouse or rat, eg Praise Seller Uttered 7 letters Decision of the court Marital split 8 letters Teaching

R E C

Sudoku

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

N D O T

I

V

by websudoku.com

4 1 7

1

7

6 7 2 4

5 3 8 9 3

2 5 1 3 2 8 3 6 5 6 3 3 8 2 Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Vacant 4 Aerobics 10 Spasmodic 11 Candy 12 Edge 13 Republican 15 Affable 16 Eighty 19 Dry run 21 Suspect 23 Television 25 Peep 27 Lycra 28 Realistic 29 Suddenly 30 Spiral

Using all nine letters provided, can you answer these clues?

Every answer must include the central letter.

Plus, which word uses all 9 letters?

by puzzler.com

DOWN 1 Visceral 2 Change for 3 Numb 5 Exclude 6 Oncologist 7 Ionic 8 Saying 9 Adhere 14 Abbreviate 17 The better 18 Atypical 20 Nostril 21 Slogan 22 Stalks 24 Lucid 26 Limp

Word Builder

The last couple of years have been anything but easy – in any of its historical senses. Easy is originally from the Latin adjacēns “nearby”, via Old French aise “convenient”. The Anglo-Normans brought aise with them when they invaded England in 1066. Here, it slowly broadened in meaning to “having the opportunity [to do something]”. By the 1400s, we had easy “comfortable, unhurried, unconstrained”. The easy “not difficult” we know today wasn’t added until the 17th century. This is also when easy starts to appear in expressions such as easy chair and easy money. These days, it’s a pretty versatile word. Interestingly, the artist’s easel isn’t related at all – it comes from the German word for “donkey” (used similarly to the horse in clothes horse).

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 7 1 Pat Cummins 2 b) Cheese 3 Villers-Bretonneux 4 Louise Brown 5 Capricorn 6 Chickenpox 7 Angela Merkel 8 d) 74 9 Budjerah 10 Burghausen Castle, Bavaria, Germany 11 Paris 12 Sussan Ley 13 True 14 David Williamson 15 They each remarried an ex-spouse 16 Comet and Cupid 17 Japan 18 1963 19 Peng Shuai 20 Zero

by Steve Knight

Quick Clues

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

5

6

7

8

9 10

11

13 14 16

17 18

DOWN

21

22 24

25 26 28

29

30

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

1 Empty beer container into wine container (6) 4 Exercise for core and abs – I am stuffed! (8) 10 D isco amps turned on and off (9) 11 S weet Charity from the wings? (5) 12 B ind ledger without using hands (4) 13 M aybe Trump runs to panic blue administration (10) 15 W arm pork pie after cafe removes crust (7) 16 S tart off high, yet beat score by four? (6) 19 C ases for doctor, your urban practice (3,3) 21 F eel odd (7) 23 T he Box Tops’ debut with Elvis , one I reviewed (10) 25 Tweet about exercise in front of the mirror? (4) 27 M aterial from really crass series (5) 28 M AD article is true to life (9) 29 T ime out from study, embracing study, left without

1 Untangled liver and sac from gut (8) 2 & 17dn Why a bookie might carry coins in

warning (8)

30 P aris shuffled off ultimately mortal coil (6)

advance? (6,3,3,6)

3 Dull men in roll-up… (4) 5 …caught entering deluxe shot bar (7) 6 Doctor’s logic not so crazy (10) 7 Bio-nickel deposit of sub-atomic particles (5) 8 Saw The Proclaimers performing? (6) 9 Bond’s appeal on billboard? (6) 14 S horten and Albo oddly veer a bit off course (10) 17 S ee 2dn 18 I play act, being cast in Divergent (8) 20 E xotic sort wears nothing. It’s breathtaking (7) 21 S econd journal article advertising 8dn (6) 22 F ollows baby carriers in reception (6) 24 R eporter’s free passport is all there (5) 26 Z eppelin start off relaxed (4)

SUDOKU

WORD BUILDER

10 DEC 2021

DOWN

53

ACROSS

5 Tired Trend Edict Noted Video 6 Editor Rodent Credit Vendor Voiced 7 Verdict Divorce 8 Doctrine 9 Contrived

27

4 2 6 8 7 3 5 9 1

23

1 Instinctive (8) 2 & 17dn Favourable adjustment (6,3,3,6) 3 Unfeeling (4) 5 Leave out (7) 6 Medical specialist (10) 7 Relating to sub-atomic particles (5) 8 Axiom (6) 9 Stick (6) 14 M ake shorter (10) 17 S ee 2dn 18 A bnormal (8) 20 Facial orifice (7) 21 C atchphrase (6) 22 F ollows (6) 24 C oherent (5) 26 F laccid (4)

1 3 7 6 9 5 8 2 4

20

5 9 8 4 1 2 3 7 6

19

2 1 9 3 5 6 4 8 7

15

Puzzle by websudoku.com

12

ACROSS

1 Unoccupied (6) 4 Type of exercise (8) 10 Fitful (9) 11 Confectionary (4) 12 R im (4) 13 US political party (10) 15 F riendly (7) 16 Venerable age (6) 19 R ehearsal (3,3) 21 D ubious (7) 23 F orm of home entertainment (10) 25 Tweet (4) 27 M aterial favoured by cyclists (5) 28 P ractical (9) 29 W ithout warning (8) 30 C oil (6)

3 7 4 9 8 1 2 6 5

4

8 6 5 7 2 4 9 1 3

3

6 5 1 2 3 8 7 4 9

2

9 4 2 5 6 7 1 3 8

1

7 8 3 1 4 9 6 5 2

Crossword

Click words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

54

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5 JANUARY 1983

Kim Hughes, Bob Hawke

I

t was the rest day of the fifth Test against England, in Sydney, January 1983.

Both men were riding high. Kim Hughes would go on to make a glorious century the next day, winning Man of the Match honours as Australia drew the match, ensuring they won the series, regaining the Ashes, the pinnacle team quest in Australian sport. Four days later he resumed the captaincy when Greg Chappell again stood

down. One month after that, Bob Hawke was elected leader of the Labor Party. A month later again, Hawke fulfilled his destiny and was elected leader of the nation. But it would end in tears for both men.

For Hughes, the end came sooner rather than later.

Precociously talented, he had never made a secret of his ambition. That won him no friends – and a few enemies. Cricket’s hard heads had no time for this curly‑haired golden

boy. The acrimony of the Kerry Packer years, during which Hughes stuck with the establishment and became captain, did not end when the two rival competitions were reunited. Greg Chappell resumed the captaincy, but on occasions relinquished it. The old hands thought moustachioed wicketkeeper Rod Marsh was next in line. Teammate Dennis Lillee certainly thought so. They made that clear, disrespecting Hughes on the field. The sniping wore down the younger man, who, addled from the West Indies’ pummelling, dramatically quit the captaincy mid-series in November 1984, breaking down in tears, unable to finish his resignation statement.

That very night Hawke stumbled badly in the first ever televised election debate. Hughes stayed in the team, but his next four scores were 0, 2, 0 and 0, out first ball – finishing with a pair and a golden duck. He never played Test cricket again. Dropped for the next Test, he expected to go on the 1985 Ashes tour of England, but was not picked. He thought (perhaps mistakenly) his career was over – so he took the money for a rebel tour of South Africa. Hawke, who despised the apartheid regime and led the sanctions against it, publicly labelled Hughes a traitor – the worst thing a prime minister could say of a fellow Australian. It hurt Hughes, a patriot who loved to tell people he was born on Australia Day. Hawke had years more to serve as PM, before his reign too ended in tears in front of his caucus colleagues that fateful day Paul Keating deposed him, 19 December 1991.