The Big Issue Australia #645 – Costa Georgiadis by The Big Issue Australia

Ed.

645 17 SEP 2021

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HORSE DOCTOR FRANCO COZZO BON SCOTT and NEIL PERRY

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Contents

EDITION

645 16 A Jab for All We visit the pop-up clinics bringing vaccines to those living on the margins, and protecting Australia’s most vulnerable communities against COVID.

20 THE BIG PICTURE

A Horse With a Course The health benefits of a relationship with an animal are well known – but a French hospital has gone next level with Dr Peyo, a therapy horse.

12.

‘I’ve Never Looked Back’ by Anastasia Safioleas

Australia’s favourite gardener Costa Georgiadis explains life lessons from his dad, the trip of a lifetime and the failure that made him. Plus, the TV host shares his tips for what to plant at your place this spring. cover and contents photos by Will Horner @willhornerphoto

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 25 Fiona

27 Ricky 34 Film Reviews 35 Small Screen Reviews 36 Music Reviews 37 Book Reviews 39 Public Service Announcement

28 FILM

40 Tastes Like Home 43 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

Grand Tale! Grand Tale! Furniture king Franco Cozzo was once known to everyone in Melbourne care of his TV ads – now a doco presents his story to the world.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

Blooming Lovely

n one of my daily constitutionals around my neighbourhood 5km, I stopped next to a fellow masked-up pedestrian at the lights. She was carrying what appeared to be a plate covered by a tea towel – like she was carefully transporting a platter of chocolate crackles or some kind of treat to a party, as folks did in the days BC. But then the tea towel started to twitch. “What’s in there?” I asked, because how could I not? It was a stray budgie, she said. It had landed at her feet on Melbourne’s empty city streets as she waited for a tram home, so she’d scooped it up and placed it into a breathable cloth bag – and now she was taking it home to live with her. She was going to name it Sebastian or Philip, or something equally unbirdlike. I felt happy for her, that she’d saved a lost soul and found a friend in one fowl swoop. It’s small moments of joy like

LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT

this that I’ve been mentally collecting to sustain me through this long winter lockdown: a video of my nephew dancing because he’d learned to click his fingers; Fiona Scott-Norman’s column about becoming Footscray’s unofficial coffee-shop correspondent; a WhatsApp photo of my parents’ flowering front yard, with a cherry blossom tree sprouting white pom‑poms. My mum has added a caption: “Spring is definitely here!” And with it, the promise of warmer weather and, hopefully, reunions with family and friends, and barbecues with shared plates of chocolate crackles. With spring in mind, in this edition we speak to Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis, who reveals his Mr Miyagi moment, his path to environmental sustainability and the secret behind his beard in his Letter to My Younger Self: “I get asked a lot of questions about why I have the beard; it gets very existential.”

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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 have an annual subscription to your wonderful magazine. As I have lived in a regional area for many years now and rarely travel to “the big smoke”, I found having a subscription was the best way to ensure I could still buy The Big Issue. Reading your magazine reminds me to be extremely grateful for what I have – a home, friends, family – and not to take any of it for granted. Thank you for making and selling a brilliant magazine. Yours is the only magazine I read cover to cover every time I open it, and I’ve been reading it for years. LARA LENNOX HEAD | NSW

I’ve been purchasing The Big Issue since 1997, and have several editions from Japan and the UK (my daughter lived there and she knew I would prefer a magazine more than any trinket). Often I take my copy down to the local high school library or leave on a bus stop seat with a sticky note: “FREE please read then pass it on.” PS: My local vendor is John; he sells outside the Coffee Club in Sandgate. KAREN W BRISBANE | QLD

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Meet Your Vendor I live on the Gold Coast, but I was born in Melbourne in 1958, in North Ringwood. I have two brothers and one sister. I’m the youngest, the baby. Mum and Dad owned a milk bar, and we lived upstairs. I’d get milkshakes! We had friends around the corner. My favourite game was chasey. We had two dogs and a cat – a little foxy named Tiny, a poodle named Pier, and the cat was named Tiddles. I went to a special school in Melbourne. I liked making friends. We played games, and I liked being outside. School work was too hard. I got help at home from Mum and Dad, but I didn’t learn to read or write. I can write my name. When I was older, we moved to Banora Point in northern New South Wales for warmer weather. I moved with Mum and Dad, not my brothers or sister; they were grown up. My dad was a builder. I helped him out a lot. He taught me how to fix things. I went to work with him – it was real good. My dad was my role model. I miss him a lot. I moved to Queensland in my thirties. I played basketball on the Gold Coast. I made friends. It felt real good to play. We had a good coach. I also played tenpin bowling. My brother Wally bought me a bag for it. I know Steve through my dad. He’s a family friend. I used to help him out in the warehouse. It was real good. I like to help people, work in their garden. I also like playing with dogs. I like animals. Now I live in housing commission. I want to get out, to move somewhere else. I’d like to have nice neighbours. I want to live with other people. I like going to Jenna’s place – she’s my niece. I play with her dogs; she’s got three. We go on coffee dates. I play with her daughter Halle; she’s 10. We watch TV, I watch her do jumps on the trampoline. I like to buy her things. I bought her a packet of chips and a lollipop. I sell the book – The Big Issue – in Burleigh Heads. I really like talking with people. The people in the shops know me. I like the other vendors, Cameron and Mark. I make friends. I go to Rosies and Walk With Us in Burleigh for a meal. I get to talk with people there. Big Issue has helped me lots. It gets me out of the house, it gives me something to do. Otherwise, I sit at home looking at the walls. I call Jenna and tell her how many books I’ve sold. Customers tell me I’m doing well. They ask me if I want a cup of coffee. It feels real good inside. I want to keep selling the magazine and meeting people.

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17 SEP 2021

interview by Amanda Sweeney photo by Barry Street

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Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

The Glue That Binds The women in my family are Mum, me and my daughter. I didn’t really know my grandmother, but Mum, my daughter and I share some commonalities. For one, we seem to be quite stubborn – this can be both good and bad – but we roll with it. My family lives all over Australia, so it can be hard to get us all together – especially these days! We all come together at Christmas, with the wider family. Mum is the head of the family, which is a big responsibility – she’s the glue that keeps us all together. My favourite quality about my daughter is that she is very loving. When my husband passed away, my daughter was right there by my side and did so much to help me. I am grateful for my mother and daughter and all that we share. SUE W WSE | ADELAIDE VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

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My New Wheelchair THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

t took a long time to get but I finally got my new wheelchair. It’s brand new. It’s different to drive – I am still getting used to it. It has different functions like indicators, headlights and tilt. And it’s an awesome colour, in The Big Issue theme. The first time I used it, it was nerve wracking. I didn’t know how to drive it, so I took it for a spin to the shops and back, all on my own. It is much smoother driving than my old chair. The best thing about it is that I finally got it. It took two‑and-a-half years of trying to sort it out. I am looking forward to this chair not breaking down so much.

MICHAEL L JAMES PLACE & ADELAIDE ARCADE | ADELAIDE

Sights for Sore Eyes On 21 June, I went to Bowen Hospital to have eye cataract surgery. It was a big operation that lasted one hour. When I woke up, I had eye goggles and patches on, so I couldn’t see at all, but both my parents were there by my side. I had to stay overnight in hospital in the wonderful care of the nurses and doctors, who were lovely. It was a long recovery. I had to stay home for a month, but I had help from nice nurses who helped me use the eye drops I needed to get better. My sight is brilliant now and the fogginess has gone. I recently went for a drive around Geelong with my support worker and I was able to see things that I haven’t seen for many years. I was in shock, so much so that I was in tears at how much I can see now. Thank you to my eye doctor, Dr Mark, for operating on me. It has changed my sight so much – and changed my life. Thank you to my mum,

Lynn, for your support, and to all of the nurses who looked after me so well. After this lockdown, I cannot wait to go back to The Big Issue to sell the mags again. I have really missed working while I have been recovering – I have missed my customers. All the best and stay safe everyone in Geelong and to everyone reading this article. Can’t wait to see everyone very soon! STEVE B MARKET SQUARE | GEELONG

Pitch In When I first started selling The Big Issue I sold in Woden, then decided to work in Belconnen. It was a good spot because of the car park nearby. It was the only way for people to get to level three of the shopping mall. I worked most days of the year: I sold hundreds of calendars there each year and too many

magazines. In 2010 the government knocked down the bridge and the bus interchange that was nearby. Since then, it has been difficult to work there because now there is more than one entrance to the mall. I also feel uncomfortable with the teenagers who hang around. I don’t know whether they are up to no good. Now I’m mostly in Woden, sometimes in Civic and sometimes in Gungahlin. Gungahlin is only a three-minute walk from where I live. I am slowly building it up like I did with the other pitches in Canberra. The best way to get people to buy The Big Issue and notice you is to be respectful to members of the public, slowly get to know them. Hopefully then, they start to buy the magazine. GRANT WODEN TOWN SQUARE, NORTH QUARTER , CIVIC & GUNGAHLIN | CANBERRA

Take a Quiz On Friday last week, I was working at Pirie Street. I had been working a few hours and I decided to visit a nearby office building that allows us to use their restrooms. I had to go in a lift up to the third floor. I got into the lift; the door closed but it did not move. I could hear that the lift’s engine had stopped. The door would not open. I rang the emergency bell in the lift, and they said they would send someone. But I found I was waiting a long time. So, I decided to call The Big Issue office. I was hoping to be out in time for the 2pm Vendor Quiz. After 30 minutes the lift technicians came and opened the door. They told me the engine had failed. I was glad to be free. I went to a different toilet and just made it to the Quiz in time. What a day! RON K PIRIE ST, ZUMA’S CENTRAL MARKET & ELIZABETH | ADELAIDE

RODNEY WITH HIS NEW TROLLEY

Onya Trolley I was sleeping on the streets recently when a customer asked me if there was something I needed. She offered to buy me a four-wheel trolley. Two days later she arrived with a trolley in hand. It made me feel good that someone was thinking of me, and it shows that there are very nice people out there who are prepared to help.

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17 SEP 2021

RODNEY EAGLE ST I BRISBANE

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

We were at the Triabunna pub and it was the local footy club’s end-of-season party and the staff were under a bit of duress so my partner and I offered to help out and ended up washing the dishes.

Rocker Tim Rogers is feeling so at home during an extended stay in Tassie, he’s taken to lending a hand in the kitchen at his local. HOBART MERCURY I AU

IRISH TIMES I IE

“The [bright] colouration on the bird is associated with aggression. Just looking like males seems to deter bullies.” Jay Falk, an ecologist at the University of Washington, on the evolution of female hummingbirds to look more like their brightly plumaged male counterparts, which helps them avoid harassment and access more food. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC I US

“I started to feel a bit of vibration and shaking, and that’s when I actually started to vomit on myself... It was a full head-to-toe experience of constant pain. My feet were numb, my knees were burning, my thighs were burning, my left arm felt like it was on fire.” Daniel Scali, from Adelaide, on setting the world record for the longest abdominal plank ever – cramping in at 9 hours, 30 minutes and one second, in a bid to raise awareness of chronic pain conditions.

“It’s been a while since we made music together. Almost 40 years, actually. We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it.” It’s Frida, Agnetha, Benny and Bjorn…again! ABBA on reuniting, and releasing new music.

“I can only assume that he picked it up from our guests. Obviously he has been working on his craft during lockdown. But this concerns me, as I thought the zoo was a happy place for families to visit!” In more bird morphing news: Leanne Golebiowski, from Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, on a lyrebird called Echo who has mastered the art of mimicking a crying baby, complete with very life‑like screams.

“The thing we all want in a break-up is company, and we want someone to listen to us cry, listen to us complain, listen to us curse that person.” David Metzer, a music historian at the University of British Columbia on the power of the break-up album. Remember, near, far, wherever you are, your heart will go on…and on.

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AL JAZEERA I QA

“When you have made a colossal mistake like I did so early in your life, and lost so much because of it, the idea of making a mistake is catastrophic...yet in order to move forward I have to take risks.” Monica Lewinsky on why she decided to be a part of the latest American Crime Story TV series, which is based on her affair with Bill Clinton.

“Some time ago, I realised that books and films were no longer enough for me to satisfy my passion for the fantasy genre and, in particular, for the Lord of the Rings saga… I decided that I wanted to live my hobbit life to the fullest.” Nicolas Gentile, an Italian pastry chef, on living his best Tolkien life: he and his family live in a hobbit house, they wear hobbit clothes, and they recently journeyed to Mount Vesuvius to throw an environmentally friendly “ring” into its crater. Lordy, lord!

“From all the records that I have broken during my career – and fortunately there have been a few – this one is very special for me and it’s certainly on the shelf of the achievements that make me truly proud.” A modest Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates becoming the all-time highest goalscorer in international football with 111 goals for his beloved Portugal.

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20 Questions by Rachael Wallace

01 What are the names of ABBA’s two

newly released songs? 02 What are people with achromatopsia

unable to do? 03 What is the longest palindrome in

the English language? 04 How many feature films has Joel

Edgerton directed? 05 What was the first soft drink

consumed by astronauts in space: Coca-Cola or Pepsi? 06 How many medals did wheelchair

racer Madison de Rozario win at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics? 07 What colour pill does Neo take to

“stay in Wonderland” in The Matrix (1999)? 08 Of which country is bobotie the

national dish? 09 Who holds the record for the

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“We could see the Indian players practising, and I thought I’ll have a chat with them between the balls and they talked like normal and I was like, ‘Wow what fellas’. They are not like the English team who’ll ignore you… Then, I came up with the idea of coming back as an Indian player. So, the next time, I got the kit and everything.” Englishman Daniel Jarvis, who intruded on both Lord’s and Headingley disguised as an Indian cricketer, on why he’s now batting for the away team.

“You simply can’t talk about women’s safety without talking about safe and affordable homes. Women and children in danger need a safe haven.” Kate Colvin, from the Everybody’s Home campaign, on the need for the housing crisis to be front and centre at the National Summit of Women’s Safety. More than 7700 women return to their abusers due to the risk of homelessness each year.

“There needs to be an environment in which everyone is healthy and can live lively in order for employees to fully demonstrate their ability, characters.” Nomura, Japan’s biggest brokerage firm, sent a message to staff telling them not to smoke cigarettes during work hours – even if working from home.

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longest-serving regular in an Australian TV soap opera? 10 How many stars are there on the

European flag? 11 In London, which event came first:

the Great Plague or the Great Fire? 12 Which major tennis tournament did

Serena Williams win while she was pregnant? Bonus points for the year. 13 Which date was the Newcastle

earthquake? 14 Why did the Dr Seuss book And to

Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street hit the headlines earlier this year? 15 How many millilitres are there in

one cup of milk? 16 According to the Macquarie

Dictionary, what does “dick-nose” mean? 17 Where was actor Hugo Weaving

born? 18 What is the name of San Francisco’s

famous fog? 19 True or false? Trees have existed for

longer than sharks. 20 Found in your body, what is an

erythrocyte better known as? 17 SEP 2021

“You have to twist and have a “If you go to lot more spinal the well often flexion in your enough, the poses so they tide will turn.” don’t look flat. It’s Overheard on the radio, from challenging on some football commentator. the body.” Alida Pepper, a life-drawing model, on the boom in virtual life drawing during the pandemic – and the art of looking 3D through a flat screen.

ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Josephine Sarvaas @josesarvwrites

mall moments of joy. That’s what the poem we’re studying is about. On my screen, half the students are anonymous grey squares. The other half have their cameras dipped at unfortunate angles. All I see are snatches of body parts: a forehead, a snippet of ear, the side of a nose. It’s a lovely poem. As the poet treks through the bush in Australia’s eastern hinterlands, he is so absorbed in the sights and sounds that he forgets his troubles. He captures each moment of delight in a series of colourful similes: a currawong warbling like a hose in a drain, the broken iceberg edge of a cliff, arcades of bush arching overhead... And, of course, the bacon tree. We are stuck on the bacon tree, and have been for five minutes. It’s not a line I thought would be particularly hard to grasp, but here we are: hacking away at a single metaphor trying desperately to find the deeper meaning. Bacon redness of bark. “I still don’t get it,” one boy says. “What’s the effect?” “Bacon,” I repeat valiantly – I have said it so many times that, by this point, it no longer sounds like a real word – “What is evoked by the image of bacon?” “He’s hungry!” someone contributes. “A grotesque image,” another student suggests. I attempt to explain. It’s a cheerful image – a playful image – the intent is to capture the charm, the pleasure found when walking in nature. The small gifts it gives you. The students complain that they don’t understand what the bacon tree looks like. A quick google later, and I am pasting an image of a tree with peeling red bark in the shared Google Doc where we are annotating the text. The wonders of technology! “There!” I cry. “That’s what he means. Can you picture it now?” A series of dubious, disgruntled noises filter through my laptop’s speakers. “Ehh, Miss, I don’t think it looks like bacon.” All of this is, however, a step up from last year’s lockdown syllabus. Trapped in our houses, we stared through the window at the apocalyptically empty streets against the cheerful backdrop of TS Eliot and Sylvia Plath’s poetry. Like J Alfred Prufrock, we sat impotent and helpless as case numbers crawled higher.

It’s a hard task, asking the kids to allow the poet Robert Gray to transport them to a romanticised bushscape filled with the gentle patter of rainfall, the shrill of cicada song, while they are confined to the four walls of their bedrooms and I’ve had to mute three people because of the background sound of vacuum cleaners, siblings squalling and washing machines. I am a firm believer in the escapist power of poetry, but right now it feels more like mockery. I’m not exactly feeling the bushwalk myself. Last lockdown, in the attic room of my parents’ home, I taught my classes at a desk facing the window. It looked out over the cheerful red roofs of our suburban street and a serene expanse of blue sky. Since moving out west, our apartment has a great view of a construction site. Still, our complex does have lovely gardens. Every morning, my sister and I are woken by birdsong. It would be idyllic, if the birds in question weren’t ravens. Has there ever been a less elegant noise? At dawn the three notes ring out without fail – strangled drones descending in pitch, growing longer each time. It’s very cinematic, very witchy, I try to convince myself, as I haul our garbage down to the communal skips in the bin room. But as lockdown wears on, the crow is joined by several friends. The pigeon with the deafening, rumbling coo that we can hear from every room in the apartment. The kookaburras, who start cackling as the sky pinks each evening, a sign it’s nearly time to close my laptop for the day. The distant, shrieking cockatoos. And there are small moments of joy. Not the flashes of sublime delight the poet found in nature, but ones fitting our times. The child who excitedly declares she has “good news!”, as her brother is finally returning from India. The seniors from schools stretching across the western suburbs, who usually take a group selfie in our tutoring hub, instead all turn their cameras on to take a screenshot. The Year 12 boy who can’t stop grinning at the sound of ‘Greensleeves’ echoing somewhere in his suburb (why an ice-cream van is out during lockdown, we’re not sure). Each one makes me smile. And when I shut my laptop screen as the kookaburra begins its daily chortle, I walk out to the balcony where, for the first time, two rainbow lorikeets have appeared, chirping and chattering as the sun sinks towards the wine-red horizon.

Josephine Sarvaas is an English tutor and aspiring writer from Sydney.

Josephine Sarvaas finds poetry in the drudgery of suburban lockdown.

17 SEP 2021

The Bacon Tree

Gardener extraordinaire Costa Georgiadis explains his beard, and recalls the trip of a lifetime – but don’t touch his grandad’s secateurs. by Anastasia Safioleas Contributing Editor

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ixteen-year-old Costa was little. I was never the biggest tree in the forest! But by that stage I was shaving. It was something I never really enjoyed, which is why I ended up growing a beard. That’s the start and finish of it. I get asked a lot of questions about why I have the beard; it gets very existential. I just don’t like wasting time having to shave. At 16 I had also just come back from the trip of a lifetime to Greece, that my mum and dad and yiayia had insisted on. I went with other Australian-Greek students and the Greek archdiocese. I came home after that trip and there was a shift in my confidence. I no longer felt the subtle stings of being Greek and being a wog. It shifted after that. I suddenly realised I was more worldly than those people who were bullying me. It was one of those moments

when I realised how thankful I am that my parents made me learn Greek. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed or not proud of it but when someone has one over you, you never know when they will drop that card. And that’s the uneven playing field of racism. I was able to stand up and say, “Oh, is that all you’ve got?” And I’ve never looked back. I was wide-eyed, and I loved my friends. I was starting to be a bit more opinionated about things. But I was lucky that I had parents and sisters who were incredibly supportive and weren’t afraid to chop you down and make you accountable, much to my frustration – I thought I had a handle on the world. My friends were a good supportive group. I still have those friends and I value them as my most precious thing. You could take everything else, except for my grandfather’s secateurs. If you take those, I won’t be happy, and I’ll track you down.

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@anast

17 SEP 2021

I used to play touch footy every weekend. We played rain, hail or shine. In fact, it was even better if it was raining. And I used to referee. I began to referee rugby at around 14 or 15. That was another great leveller because you have to communicate under emotionally inflamed circumstances. People step across the line and as a referee you have to de-escalate situations and manage the way people behave. Often, I had to manage adults as well. At the time I was also an abseiling instructor. When you have to instruct a teacher who’s shaking as you push them off the fourth-floor verandah of a building, they have to trust you. These had an impact on my demeanour and my interaction with people. I’ve probably always been like a referee; you don’t throw fuel on a fire. You calm things down and listen. It taught me a lot. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested [in girls], but I was always busy. I was captain of the cricket team, I refereed rugby, I played sport on the weekend. I’d ride my bicycle, go body surfing. I was really active. I always have been. I might’ve had a crush or two here and there. There might have been a little fling at a school dance…

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BEFORETIMES: A BAREFACED COSTA AT 21

I get asked a lot of questions about why I have the beard; it gets very existential.

Dad was a stickler for detail so if you were going to do something, you had to do it properly. That requires discipline and the capacity to not take a shortcut. As a 16-year-old it would drive me crazy because sometimes I just wanted to get something done and move on. Probably one of the most disciplined things – the Mr Miyagi moment – that Dad used to make us do was vacuum the swimming pool. You couldn’t go fast because if you did it stirred up all the dirt. By the time you got to the end of the pool, all that dirt had settled and you had to go back and do it again. It was very zen. Dad would come and have a look and if you’d done it well, he’d be like “Okay, you’re free to do what you want.” Dad did things well and with a lot of care. As much as it used to drive me crazy, I’m exactly the same now. Mum’s lesson to me was about holding space for the people that matter. Mum did this incredibly well. She never missed a birthday or a name day or when someone had a baby or graduated or bought their first house or became the singer in a musical or whatever. I even got a cake once that she sent to Prague. When I got to the poste restante, which was how it was back then, there was a box with a cake in it. It had a bit of mould, but we cut it off and put a candle on it, she had supplied that too, and my friends sang ‘Happy Birthday’. She listened really carefully. If you listen to people, then you’re truly connected to them and what matters. That taught me to be present for the moments that matter. The most valuable thing that my family gave me and my most precious asset is certainty. My parents provided certainty. And my grandparents were that same metronome of certainty. When you went over, the first thing they would say is “you’ve got to have something to eat”. And I knew Papou would always be out in the garden. The biggest surprise in my life is learning that predictability doesn’t bring happiness, and that uncertainty and failure build the space for content. One of my biggest successes was when I failed the third year of my landscape architecture course at uni. That clipped my wings, just when I felt on top of the world. But it changed my outlook. It sent me on the path that I am on now in terms of understanding environment and sustainability. It really lit the fuse that then took flame and has been going ever since. I was going to do a paper on outdoor dining, but I turned it around

COSTA’S

SPRING-PLANTING GUIDE

TROPICS basil, carrot, eggplant, sweet corn

SUBTROPICS beetroot, coriander, lettuce, tomato

TEMPERATE ZONE broccoli, celery, lettuce, mint

HERE ARE THE BEST THINGS TO PLANT RIGHT NOW ACCORDING TO WHERE YOU LIVE

ARID ZONE beans, cabbage, dill, spring onion

everyone with you because it will be all the more fulfilling when you’re on the top of the sand dune, the top of the mountain, the edge of lake… It will be all the more amazing if you’re there with people. And make sure you do things bit by bit. Massive deep shifts will polarise and create problems and not necessarily achieve what you want to achieve. The more you listen and really engage, then the more you get back. I’d also tell my younger self to make sure you record the facts and the figures and the stories that matter around those who are precious and whose time may be limited. And don’t be afraid of adapting and shifting your purpose as it adapts and shifts with your experiences and your life. Make an effort to connect with our country. If I had the time again, I would have gotten into the community and onto country earlier. Now it’s what I do a lot of and I’m fortunate, but back then it wasn’t the same. Now there’s opportunities to connect with the true caretakers of the land.

COSTA HOSTS GARDENING AUSTRALIA, FRIDAYS AT 7.30PM ON ABC TV AND ABC IVIEW. HIS NEW BOOK, COSTA’S WORLD (ABC BOOKS) WILL BE AVAILABLE IN ALL GOOD BOOKSTORES AND ONLINE FROM 13 OCTOBER – AND PRE-ORDER VIA BOOKTOPIA.

17 SEP 2021

and did a thesis about green cities of the future: ecology, sustainability, awareness and responsibility for the enrichment of human settlements. That’s everything that I’m involved with today. And that came about because I failed. One of the happiest moments of my life was seeing my sisters have their children; that was pretty amazing. And when I set off on my world trip. I was 25. I travelled with friends for nine months and then found work in Vienna in Austria. Just being able to jump on a train and go to Prague or Budapest or go hiking in the hills. Some of my happiest moments were hiking in the Austrian Alps and looking out over the sunset and thinking Wow, this is another world. I was living what I had wished for: to travel and see places and meet people. That trip was probably one of my happiest moments. Today I would tell 16-year-old Costa don’t be hard on yourself. Acknowledge the things you do and the things you achieve. And if you set goals, make sure you bring

COOL ZONE carrot, chives, onion, potatoes

Early spring is a great time of year to enjoy nature bursting forth through new buds, new leaves and, of course, a variety of new flowers. Take a walk around your area and observe what is flowering in your local gardens and parks. Take note of the things you like. Watch out for birds and insects, such as native bees, and see which ones you can identify. Is wildlife slowly becoming more active? The weather can also be a bit unpredictable at this time year, with cool days followed by hot days or frost or even hailstorms. Getting to know the weather makes you better prepared and connected with what is happening on the ground.

A JAB FOR ALL by Anastasia Safioleas Contributing Editor @anast photos by Christina Simons

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

@christinasimons

ABDULLAH GETS HIS VACCINATION: “I‘M DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR MYSELF AND MY COMMUNITY.”

Anastasia Safioleas joins the vaccination clinics protecting Australia’s most vulnerable communities against COVID.

More than 116,000 Australians are homeless. Not only are they at greater risk of exposure to COVID, they also face significant barriers to accessing the vaccine and other health supports. “Those living in high-density accommodation, such as rooming houses or overcrowded housing, are more vulnerable to COVID-19 because of shared entries and exits and shared living spaces,” explains Dr Nadia Chaves, an infectious diseases specialist and chair of C-19 Network, a Victorian consortium of not-for-profit community health organisations convened last year to provide COVID testing to vulnerable communities. “And people who live in temporary accommodation, high-density housing and rough sleepers face multiple barriers to accessing COVID-19 vaccinations and are at risk of contracting COVID-19.” The health impacts of homelessness are already considerable. It leads to significantly higher rates of morbidity, disability and chronic illness. International research also shows that those with a stable place to call home live on average 30 years longer than those without one.

17 SEP 2021

oday I’m getting my second jab and I feel good,” says Abdullah. He’s waiting his turn to enter the stately Art Deco building that is home to Melbourne community health organisation Cohealth. It’s also now the site of their temporary vaccination clinic, complete with PPE‑clad nurses, social workers and rows of socially distanced chairs. Today they are vaccinating one of the most vulnerable groups in our community, people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness. Abdullah is 58 and has had numerous bouts of sleeping rough. Just as the pandemic hit, he found himself homeless again. “I ended up going to a crisis centre in St Kilda, a place where you can also get needles and stuff, and they asked me if I needed emergency housing,” he says. “One thing led to another, and I was put up in a hotel.” For 13 months Abdullah had a secure roof over his head, and says he enjoyed some of the simple things in life, like fresh towels. He was recently placed in long-term interim housing via the Victorian state government’s From Homeless to a Home initiative. It’s where he’ll stay until he can secure permanent public housing. It’s time for Abdullah to receive his second dose. He secures his face mask. “I’m getting the vaccine because I figure half the population is almost done, so I might as well join in and do the right thing,” he says, making his way inside and to one of the waiting nurses. “If everybody did the right thing and lined up and got their jabs, pretty soon there’d be no COVID-19 to worry about in Australia. I’m doing the right thing for myself and my community.”

COHEALTH NURSE EVITA ARCE IN HER ALL-IMPORTANT PPE

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DANIEL FROM COHEALTH CHATS WITH RESIDENT SANJ

AFTER HIS VACCINATION, ABDULLAH WAITS WITH BEN QUINN

When a person’s basic needs such as safe housing, secure work or adequate access to food are not easily met, accessing medical services such as “a vaccination or testing is not necessarily a priority,” says Dr Chaves. “These disadvantages may also intersect with other significant issues such as mental health or chronic physical conditions. Lockdowns make everything more difficult to access, including regular medical care. And booking a vaccination through an online portal and navigation of a health website for health information may prove very challenging.” Ben Quinn is part of a specialist team that supports homeless health. As well as working at Cohealth’s permanent location in Melbourne’s CBD, he has been heading out with their mobile vaccination clinic to hotels-turned-emergency accommodation, used to shelter rough sleepers during the pandemic. When we meet, at a small city hotel housing 45 residents, a pop‑up vaccination clinic has been set up in the hotel’s tiny reception, a space ordinarily occupied by a sign-in desk and a pair of armchairs. Quinn is all too familiar with the significant health barriers faced by people experiencing homelessness. “They experience discrimination, they don’t have ID or a Medicare card, they’re not linked into a GP clinic and don’t have access to reliable information,” he says. “It means many members of the homeless community don’t feel comfortable or safe accessing a vaccination hub or GP clinics. “For those reasons it’s really important that we break down those barriers. One way of doing that is to bring the vaccines to where people are living or spending time. It’s also about providing information in a way that connects with the homeless community from a trusted source.” Which brings us to Jimmy Rose, a tall and softly spoken “western suburbs lad”, who knows firsthand what it’s like to be homeless. Today he’s a peer‑support worker, helping to break down myths around COVID and provide greater access to those wanting to get vaccinated. Earlier that morning Rose and a Cohealth social worker knocked on the door of each room, letting residents know they were offering Pfizer vaccines downstairs. “I reassure them the best I can,” he says. “If they have any questions we’ll go and ask the nurse. And I tell them that I’ve had the jab and that I’m still here. That you’re more likely to win TattsLotto than have serious side effects. There’s a lot of misinformation out there.” Nurse Julie Smith, clinic manager of St Vincent de Paul’s Matthew Talbot Hostel, a crisis accommodation centre located in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo, has witnessed the misinformation and distrust among her vulnerable patients. But says there are ways to combat this. “You’ve got to offer the vaccine in a way that is enthusiastic and positive and assertive but not coercive,” Smith says. “People don’t want to be made to have

something – nobody likes that. And you have to be consistent. Keep coming back and be in the same place. “We continue to turn up to the hub in Woolloomooloo every Thursday with doctors, nurses and support workers. Over time, it’s grown so the word has spread. People who were hesitant have changed their minds. That has changed the minds of their neighbours.” The hub has been a runaway success. Their first clinic in May saw just over 100 people turn up to get the jab. Today they have queues of between 400 to 500 people. So far they have vaccinated close to 4000 homeless and vulnerable Sydneysiders through the hub. Baptist Care SA in Adelaide are adopting a similar approach. Their WestCare Centre offers free meals, hot showers and laundry facilities, as well as emergency relief. And as of July they have been hosting a pop-up vaccination clinic, and have administered more than 200 vaccines. Back in Melbourne, Cohealth vaccination nurse Harshpreet Kaur has been travelling site to site, vaccinating rough sleepers. Yesterday they set up in a car park. Today they’re in a hotel’s reception. So far Cohealth have administered more than 800 vaccines through their pop-up clinics. Kaur admits it’s a long road. “Some days you have 15 or 20 people coming to get vaccinated and then at other sites you don’t have anyone,” she says. “Some people have a good understanding of the vaccination process but for others you really need to go through the process with them. The social workers help us with this.” At today’s pop-up vaccination clinic in the city hotel, five of the 45 hotel residents decide to get vaccinated. Ben Quinn is happy with this number. He’ll continue the conversation with those who need time to think about it, and expects more will decide to get the jab once they are comfortable. “For many it’s the first time they’ve even thought about getting the COVID vaccine, so we need to give them the space to think about it,” he says. “We often see people come back to us and get it after they’ve thought about it some more and had a chance to speak to their friends about it.” Abdullah is less diplomatic. “A friend of mine won’t do it yet. He’s holding off to see what will happen to other people. I told him he’s going to eventually have to get the vaccine so you might as well get it done now. There’s no use changing your mind when you’re dead.”

HARSHPREET KAUR WITH TREVOR, WHO’S JUST BEEN VACCINATED

I tell them that I’ve had the jab and that I’m still here. That you’re more likely to win TattsLotto than have serious side effects. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. JIMMY ROSE, PEER-SUPPORT WORKER

TO FIND YOUR NEAREST VACCINATION CLINIC,

17 SEP 2021

VISIT HEALTH.GOV.AU.

series by Jérémy Lempin

The Big Picture

A Horse With a Course Award-winning photographer Jérémy Lempin meets the very special doctor bringing comfort to his patients. by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor @melissajfulton

Hassen Bouchakour escorts Doctor Peyo to Calais Hospital’s palliative care ward. It takes two hours to sterilise and prepare Peyo for a trip to the hospital. Hassen plaits his hair for hygiene reasons.

FOR MORE IMAGES VISIT JEREMYLEMPIN.COM.

17 SEP 2021

he nurses call him Doctor Peyo,” says photographer Jérémy Lempin, as he imitates their singsong voices down the phone line: “Hello, Doctor Peyo!’” Doctor Peyo is no ordinary doctor. He isn’t even an ordinary horse. But in the Séléne Palliative Care Unit at the Centre Hospitalier de Calais, France, Peyo and his trainer Hassen Bouchakour are integral to the ward’s medical team. Peyo is a therapy horse, with a unique ability to provide comfort and companionship to people in pain. His gift was first discovered by Bouchakour in the competition world, where Peyo performed in equestrian and dressage events. Usually an aloof, no-nonsense personality, Peyo would venture to the grandstands after events, seeking out particular audience members whom he sensed could use a hug. Peyo still competes, but since 2016 his primary role is at the hospital. He tells Bouchakour which patients he’d like to visit by lifting his leg outside their door. “It’s always he who chooses where he wants to go,” reflects Lempin, who says that Peyo’s ability to seek out the ward’s most vulnerable patients is uncanny. A visit from Peyo is always a welcome one, but it’s a difficult one too. “There’s this double aspect of his visits: in one way, Peyo’s a way to think about something else, but in the other way, they know that it’s not a good sign in general.” Peyo’s role is to help his patients let go. He spends time nuzzling with them, and lets them stroke his mane. “He comes very close and he gives lots of kisses and hugs,” observes Lempin. “He protects them too, covers them with his neck and head. And sometimes he pushes away gently the family and nurses. It feels like at that moment he’s the only one who could actually do something good for the patient.” Documenting these intimate exchanges was an unforgettable experience for Lempin. He remembers Marion, who was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and her son Ethan. “This picture represents the moment when everyone was completely aware of how it was going to end,” he says of them snuggling with Peyo. “There’s a fraction of a second of relief, of relief before dying.” Marion passed away a week after the picture was taken. This was the last visit she had with her son. Terminal cancer patient Daniel was a former equestrian, and formed a very special bond with Peyo. Prior to his photo being taken, Daniel was not moving, not talking. His family thought his time had come, but when Peyo entered the room, Daniel mustered the strength to sit up. The patients Lempin captured for this series have all since passed away; alongside Peyo, he attended the funerals of some of them. “You have to be objective when you’re shooting those kinds of stories,” he says. “Because first you have to be there to keep a memory, and then you can take the time to feel everything you have stuffed in a corner of your heart, of your brain.” But Lempin says that this story is only partly about loss; what Peyo brings to his patients is joy: “It gives me goosebumps, every time I speak about this story. Because I know in my heart, it’s impressive. That’s our Peyo.”

Peyo indicates whom he would like to visit by lifting his leg outside their room.

“They are as one,” says Jérémy Lempin of Peyo and his trainer.

Former equestrian Daniel formed a special bond with Peyo. When Daniel died, Peyo attended his funeral service.

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Hassen Bouchakour and Peyo enjoy some time off at the beach.

Peyo nuzzles up to Marion and her son Ethan. This photograph received second prize in its category at last year’sXXX World Press Photo Awards.

17 SEP 2021

Peyo doesn’t only help the patients, he also gives comfort to families, like nine-year-old Isaac, whose mother has just come out of surgery.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

here’s a New Yorker cartoon doing the rounds, of a mother reading in the lounge room while her child sits on the floor and gazes at an ominous whirling black hole in the wall. “That’s just the abyss,” the mother says. “Try not to stare into it.” This hits me right in the Locky D6s, which is where we’re up to in Melbourne, lockdown wise. I don’t know if Sydney’s come up with its own pet name or Dewey Decimal System for their lockdowns, but I dare say after week 183 or wherever we’re all currently up to, everyone’s on the same page existentially. The challenge in lockdown is to find purpose and structure, as time melts. Was Salvador Dalí ever in Locky D? I wonder, noting that strong 2021 energy shimmers off an elephant with stilts for legs striding across a blazing red desert, or a clock drooping like artisanal pizza dough over a branch. Surrealism is relatable, when you’re abyss‑staring. On the first morning of the first day of our current and perhaps final lockdown, I cycled to a local cafe named POD. It’s a bit of a fave, attached to an arty industrial design shop that sells geometric earrings and side tables made of brass pipes and steel fittings. I usually make coffee at home – we have a fancy machine after all – but gee it felt good to be Out. Of. The. House. You know, getting some light exercise and having a chat to the barista, or, as I call them, a person who is not my intimate partner. I think the jury’s out on whether it’s worse to be isolating alone, or with the same damn human. My honey, bless him, after 18 months working from home, does not have a conversational gambit I can’t see coming from Jupiter. “What did you do today, darling? Oh that’s right, you stood in front of your screen and coded. I watched you do it in real time.” Rehearsing for retirement, the tedium is real.

As I waited outside POD, mask on, for my flat white, I considered my options for adventure. “Tomorrow,” I thought wildly, “I shall go to a different cafe!” And that was that. It’s gilding the lily to call it a mission, but it’s definitely something. Time and memory go loose as an old brassiere strap when we don’t have new experiences, and I’ve latched on to this merry quest like a limpet. I’ve visited 20 cafes to date, one each day, all within my 5km limit. I order coffee, have a chat, take some pics, put it up on the Footscray Good Karma Network’s Facebook page. I have become quite the neighbourhood identity. “You’re the coffee lady!” people say, thrilled I’ve turned up at their local. Such is the hunger for anyone doing anything, folk have invested. I am being cheered on. “Thanks for supporting the cafes,” they write. And, “these posts are the highlight of my day”. I think we all sense it; the only antidote to the abyss is community. Being constrained to within a 5km radius makes us humble, offers the opportunity of connecting with what’s in front of our faces. I think I’d been told so many times that fancy coffee is self‑indulgent, I’d internalised it. But it’s not true. I’m moved every day, visiting cafes that are full little hearts, the owners and baristas turning up to serve. They care so much. Lee, whose mum knits the tea-cosies they sell, makes the jarred jams and pickles. Tegan, who opened her own cafe, in lockdown, because her area needed one. Helen, who realised she’s the only person some folk get to speak to each day, so figured she’d make every conversation count. They have purpose. Interestingly, not one of them talks about the money. Three weeks more, at least. Another 21 cafes. TBH, I don’t want lockdown to end.

Fiona is a writer, comedian and brewtiful soul.

17 SEP 2021

A Whole Latte Love

I think we all sense it; the only antidote to the abyss is community.

Fiona

by Ricky French @frenchricky

ne of the great things about lockdown (I’m trying to kick off this column on a positive note) is that it does wonders for the neighbourhood. Ever since the word became fixed in our consciousness around 18 months ago, our newspapers have been full of heartwarming and hokey stories from the suburbs – neighbours looking out for each other in various ways, doing what they can to forge or maintain that all-important human connection. I wouldn’t say there’s been any of that where I live, but we have enjoyed getting to know every corner of the prison exercise yard known as our “5km radius”. There are some interesting things about my 5km radius. The first is that it splits my local Parkrun course in half. Parkrun is a weekly 5km run we do every Saturday morning – used to do every Saturday morning, I should say. It’s closed now, of course. But we can still drive to the park and legally run the course – well, legally run just over half the course. The course is a loop, neatly bisected by my 5km radius: somewhere around the 3.2km mark I suddenly become a menace to public health, a situation rectified only by continuing to run to the 4.7km mark, where my temporary virus-shedding abilities are miraculously extinguished as I cross back within the protective radius. Now, the last thing I am going to do in this magazine is admit to breaking the lawful public health orders as set out by the Chief Health Officer, but let me just say if they want to catch me running from the law on the wrong side of the park they will have to run very fast. The second interesting thing is that the 5km radius very nearly includes the airport. Admittedly this would be far more interesting if it did actually include the airport, as it would pose some questions I would seriously mull over, such as could I jump on a plane and fly far, far away without breaking the rules? Is airspace governed by the 5km radius? Could I get my daily exercise walking around

the empty terminals? What if I had a hot air balloon? If I launched off from my backyard would I get into trouble if I went more than 5km straight up into the sky? I’m beginning to understand how prisoners find very inventive ways to escape (and I can’t believe I’ve never thought about tunnelling…until now). Ironically, the most interesting thing is also the most mundane: our regular dog walks (or runs) by the local creek. Over the past year we’ve watched as suburbia encroaches on our creek. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s entirely possible to have a lovely creek with walking and bike paths in the middle of a suburban metropolis. Merri Creek in Melbourne is one example. Out here in the western badlands our creek has suffered by way of its seclusion, becoming a haven for illegal dirt-bike riders, dumpers of hard rubbish and the burnt-out carcasses of old cars. It was quite a nice place to walk even with all those elements, but I’m hoping gentrification will attract a better breed of creek users. A new estate is rising fast on the far side. No doubt the last thing the developers want is dirt-bike riders or cars on fire behind the back fences of their nice McMansions, so they’ve got together with council and worked out the perfect – and inevitable – solution: concrete. A new concrete path is spreading steadily along the bank. With it will come families, bike riders, designer dogs, security cameras on lampposts, and all those nice things that hoons and rubbish dumpers don’t like. But the best thing is that the path is being built on the high side of the creek. Down by the water’s edge they are leaving the bumpy, muddy foot trail that we love – win-win! It’s nice to get out, and for once I welcome our cashed-up bogan overlords. They mean no harm. Welcome to the neighbourhood.

Ricky is a writer and musician on the run.

17 SEP 2021

Without a Paddle

I can’t believe I’ve never thought about tunnelling… until now.

Ricky

Film

Palazzo di Cozzo

SO FA , SO GO OD !

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Grand Tale! Grand Tale! Furniture king Franco Cozzo became a household name in Melbourne in the 70s thanks to his signature TV ads – now his story is hitting the big screen. by Isabella Trimboli Music Editor @itrimboli

f you’ve ever found yourself at the home of an old Italian migrant somewhere in Australia, chances are you’ve come across Franco Cozzo’s furniture – or at least something like it: baroque-style couches, gilded mirrors, hand-carved dining tables, florid bedroom vanities and bed frames that could have been ransacked from Versailles. The items look and feel like treasured museum pieces. Not only are they immaculately maintained, but the couches and dining tables are also often covered in thick, translucent plastic that is rarely removed. In the 70s and 80s, the ostentatious furniture salesman Franco Cozzo made a name for himself selling ornate wares to recently arrived Greek and Italian migrants in his stores across Melbourne. But it was his theatrical advertisements that solidified his status as a cultural icon. The set-up was simple but effective: Cozzo, dressed in a suit, his salt-and-pepper hair combed back, would hawk his furniture and stores in a thick Italian accent: “Megálo, megálo, megálo!” he’d announce with gusto. “Franco Cozzo, in Brunswick and Foot-is-cray.”

In an era when Australian television was relatively whitebread and homogeneous, his advertisements were brazen in their use of the Italian and Greek languages. These slogans, and Cozzo’s unique enunciation – “Grand sale! Grand sale!” – lived well beyond their airtime, immortalised to this day. Found on YouTube, these clips were the first memory that Melbourne filmmaker Madeleine Martiniello has of Cozzo: “Funnily enough, my introduction to him was through the internet.” It was only after she moved out of home and into suburbs where Cozzo had an influence that she became “more aware of him in terms of the landmark status of his shops,” she says. Her debut feature documentary, Palazzo di Cozzo, is a celebratory portrait of Franco Cozzo that goes beyond his boisterous salesman persona. Martiniello charts his rise from penniless Sicilian to Australian furniture king, while also more widely exploring the post-war migrant experience and the aesthetics of aspiration in the Italian diaspora. The starting point for Palazzo di Cozzo “was this fascination with the aesthetic,” she says. “Because I come from Italian

PALAZZO DI COZZO IS IN CINEMAS NOW, WITH VICTORIA AND NEW SOUTH WALES TO FOLLOW.

17 SEP 2021

PHOTO BY VINCENT LAMBERTI

MADELEINE MARTINIELLO, DIRECTOR

He’s really beloved by Melbourne…

heritage, I felt a connection to that grand interior design.” But the idea for the film only came to Martiniello a few years ago when she found herself peering through the window into Cozzo’s giant, multi-storey showroom in Footscray. “Like a lot of people, I thought the shop was actually closed. I was like, ‘Look at this huge showroom that’s just sitting there, full of this baroque furniture. It would make such a beautiful short documentary to go in there and film this abandoned showroom,’” she says. Martiniello gave him a call after she realised that, actually, the stores were still open – and the 85-year-old patriarch was still working. One of the main tensions in the film is Cozzo’s obstinance, refusing to admit to himself that the glory days of baroque furniture – and his business – are behind him. In a memorable moment, Cozzo, surrounded by dusty relics in his showroom, admits he can’t retire yet because he still has millions of dollars’ worth of furniture to sell. Some of the film’s most fascinating scenes are not of Cozzo but of his clients and their extravagant homes. There’s the moneyed, ultra-loyal customer who boasts her home is “95 per cent” Cozzo, and who is contemplating buying one of his $50,000 dining tables. There’s the young fashion designer whose prized possession is one of his black 80s bed frames. And, most touching of all, there are the two adult children of recently deceased migrants from Sicily, whose family living room is an evocative time capsule, filled with glorious, peach‑coloured couches and matching ornamental wallpaper. Despite the furniture’s impracticality and expensive price tag, a considerable majority of Cozzo’s clientele were workingclass Italian and Greek migrants who felt increasingly alienated from their roots. As the documentary explains, Cozzo’s Italianmade furniture was a way to reconnect with European culture and tradition, and to forge community in a foreign nation. Cozzo’s rapport with migrants persists. “A lot of the people who are shopping there today are the local population of Footscray, and so there’s a lot of African migrants and Southeast Asian migrants,” says Martiniello. Palazzo di Cozzo draws a parallel between the flamboyant furniture and Cozzo’s larger-than-life personality. This is especially clear in a 1981 interview on The Don Lane Show: as Cozzo takes a seat on a modernist 80s chair, Lane remarks, “I don’t think you look very comfortable,” before gesturing to the crew to bring out a baroque armchair for his guest to sit on instead. It was Martiniello’s favourite piece of archival footage found during her research. “It’s played as a bit of a joke. But it’s also honouring Franco at the same time,” she says. “[That tension] is part of who he is and part of his public image in general.” Decades later, that image extends to an alley in Footscray that has been unofficially named in his honour, and a giant mural of the icon’s beaming face. “He’s really beloved by Melbourne…[but] sometimes people just consider him as this caricature. On the other hand, people really respect who he is and what he stands for.”

Like a Diamond

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Music

HTRK

HTRK manage the difficult feat of being sad yet sexy, otherworldly while acoustic, dreamy but familiar. by Angus Mcgrath @excbr

Angus McGrath is a Sydney-based writer and artist, who also makes music as California Girls.

oth members of HTRK enter our Zoom chat, separately, at 11.06 on the dot – guitarist Nigel Yang logging in from the suburbs of Melbourne while singer Jonnine Standish is at home in the Dandenong Ranges. Their perfectly timed arrival is circumstantial, but it hints at a deep connection, one verging on the psychic perhaps. The duo have been making music together as HTRK (pronounced “Hate Rock”) since 2003, garnering a cult-like following for their ghost-like sound that has its own eerie dream-world magic. “Altered states are always a really big part of what we’re trying to create in the listener,” says Yang. It’s apparent all the way from the buzzsaw, post-punk dirge of their debut Marry Me Tonight (2009), to the spacious, blissful hum of their third album Psychic 9-5 Club (2014), through to their new album Rhinestones, even as it foregrounds sparse country ballads.

It’s stripped back from the sluggish drum-machine rhythms of their earlier releases, but still contains a cavernous, sad-yet-sexy sway that’s earned them their otherworldly reputation. Both bandmembers reveal they came to Rhinestones with personal touch points – Yang moved by surreal, contemporary gothic writers like Carmen Maria Machado and Claire-Louise Bennett; and Standish evoking hazy memories of horror movies at a drive-in theatre with her family as a toddler. The album melds these influences by uniquely tapping into both the supernatural and the banal, which Standish believes are inextricably connected. “There’s not much of a gap between what’s real and what’s not real in HTRK, because I think the everyday is insane enough,” she says. “In everyday domestic life, there’s a madness and an insanity if you’re not careful.”

stroke of fingers moving across the strings, drowned in an echo-like rain. Standish sings, distinctly smoky, describing how she can make you glitter, as she calmly gives way to a subtle flute-synth. Standish and Yang’s friendship is impossible to overlook as a generative force at the heart of the band. HTRK feel like siblings, people who’ve grown together, developing a shared dialogue. It’s this intimacy that drives Rhinestones – and their songwriting process. “I’d bring in ideas on guitar that have a certain emotion to me and then somehow – almost telepathically – Jonn writes lyrics that express in words very close to what I have in mind. That process is very exciting when you’re deep in an album,” Yang says. “It’s never mentioned but hugely enjoyable.” Standish pauses, mid Zoom, noting that she’s never acknowledged this symbiotic connection,

Altered states are always a really big part of what we’re trying to create in the listener.

but it’s one she’d subconsciously realised all along. “I’m jumping lyrically or melodically off guitar lines that Nigel’s coming up with on the spot, and if something sparks him to continue, I kinda know that something struck a chord there,” she says. “None of this is ever spoken, but it could be that I’m extracting out of Nigel what he wants to say.” Unsurprisingly, friendship became the central theme of the album – not only their own bond, but other relationships too. “During lockdown, I really started to appreciate the friends and strong connections I had,” says Yang. “That’s why friendship was at the forefront of our creative flow. There’s just so much energy that comes from friends that gets brushed aside when most people are writing songs about romantic partners or adventures.” Even noxious relationships, says Standish, who found it “really fun to dive into toxic acquaintances or friends who might be really dear but are emotionally manipulative in a really subtle way. “[Friendship] is the most valuable currency for sure…the time you had together, you think about it forever, and those good times that you had are a physical permanent object.” RHINESTONES IS OUT NOW.

17 SEP 2021

HTRK wrote Rhinestones while beginning a residency with the beloved London-based NTS Radio. Programming shows of minimal electronics and traditional country-folk songs, they threw in small snippets of music they were working on, finding a hypnotic spectral tone across genres. Although this was during Melbourne’s on-again off-again lockdowns, the show opened up their writing process. “When we’ve made albums in the past, it’s almost like a self‑imposed lockdown where we haven’t listened to much other music, especially new music,” says Standish. The new approach resulted in two songs ‘Real Headfuck’ and ‘Reverse Déjà Vu’, well before the rest of the album was done. The impact of classic country singers like John Prine is apparent throughout both Rhinestones and the NTS show. “All of his songs are two minutes at the most, and that’s really how songs should be. I started to appreciate how certain songwriters whittled their songs down really short, sweet, sharp, and that was a goal with all the songs on this one,” Yang says. It’s a testament to HTRK’s alchemy that they can conjure altered states while remaining short and sharp, and the album opener, ‘Kiss Kiss and Rhinestones’ is perfect proof. It’s surprisingly acoustic, recorded so closely you can hear the tap of the guitar’s wooden body and the

PHOTO BY AGNIESZKA CHABROS

NIGEL YANG

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Books

Bon Scott

Bon Vivant Jeff Apter’s new biography of AC/DC frontman Bon Scott brings the man, the myth, the jeans, to life. by Kirsten Krauth @kirstenkrauth @almost.a.mirror

Kirsten Krauth is author of the novel and podcast Almost a Mirror. She once tap‑danced to ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’ as part of a flash mob, featuring a bagpipe player.

t’s 1975 and we’re in the Countdown studios. The members of AC/DC are about to perform and the clock is ticking. They’re getting antsy because their lead singer Bon Scott has disappeared. Just when they’ve given up hope, he flounces in. He’s wearing a blonde wig with plaits, blue eyeshadow, a school tunic and hoop earrings, shirt rolled up to reveal his tatts. He’s raided the ABC costume department. He lets loose with a version of ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’. As Angus Young starts his guitar solo, Bon lights a cigarette and throws the match away. He ends up lying down on stage in the dress and, according to his biographer Jeff Apter, the girls screaming in the front row cop more than they bargain for. A former Rolling Stone writer who has interviewed the likes of Aretha Franklin and Helen Reddy, Jeff Apter is a great storyteller. Based in Wollongong, he has written 30 books, most of them muso biographies, including a number with AC/DC connections – of brothers Malcolm, Angus and George Young, as well as helping out on memoirs from Michael Browning (manager) and Mark Evans (bass

player). He started out as a fan, too, sneaking off to watch Bon secretly on Countdown even though “Countdown was kind of frowned upon as just being a cheesy pop show”. When Apter was 15 in 1977, he went to an AC/DC gig at The Haymarket, hoping to get past the bouncers. “We were just a bunch of shitkickers from the western suburbs in our Levi jeans and our western shirts with mullets,” he laughs. They had no luck getting in, but it didn’t matter. “They played so loudly that you could hear them on the other side…with a brick wall separating me and the band. But it really left an impact,” he says. You can track Bon’s life journey by the monuments erected to him. From his birthplace in Kirriemuir, Scotland (with bagpipes) to Fremantle in WA (with microphone) to ACDC Lane in Melbourne (with tight jeans). In Bad Boy Boogie, Apter reveals that Bon crammed a lot

hedonism, according to Apter, had a darker side too. “It doesn’t look very good in the rear-view mirror, I guess, in these more enlightened times,” he says. Bon’s relentless pursuit of women (many underage), and the desire to party for weeks at a time, caught up with him in the end. Apter says that one of his motives for writing the book was to address the many untruths that have spread about Bon’s death, particularly that it was caused by a heroin overdose. “We know from personal experience that he was very resistant to illicit serious drugs. He smoked pot and he drank, but not harder drugs.” The story Apter tells is that Bon died at just 33 years old, in a freezing car, after a big drinking night in London. His friends thought he had just passed out and left him to sleep it off. Apter reveals that Bon had been seeing a doctor for liver damage, was on medication and had been told he had the liver of someone twice his age. He died of

We were just a bunch of shitkickers from the western suburbs in our Levi jeans and our western shirts with mullets. acute alcohol poisoning, bitterly tragic, but was not caught up in the myth of the junkie. “He’d seen what happened to Stevie Wright from the Easybeats. He’d seen what a mess he’d become and how he’d ruined his career.” While Apter doesn’t shy away from Bon’s destructive behaviour, he also uses lyrics and letters to highlight other aspects of Bon’s nature. A prolific letter-writer, Bon wrote regularly from the road to keep connections alive, and when he toured, he always wanted a friend to go with him, leaving the sense that after living a nomadic lifestyle for 15 years, he was often, at the heart of it, lonely. In a particularly poignant moment, Apter describes Bon sleeping in a hammock outside his ex-wife’s house because he didn’t know she was away – or perhaps because he had nowhere else to go. “I think he was looking at ways to find permanency somewhere else beyond life in a rock’n’roll band,” he reflects. There’s a photo of Bon Scott online where his jeans are so tight, they have finally split. It doesn’t look like it bothers him. Apter’s biography brings to life this full-frontal raw talent and quick wit, his obvious love for his fellow bandmates, and his enduring appeal as a performer with absolute conviction, who gave everything for his audience. BAD BOY BOOGIE: THE TRUE STORY OF AC/DC LEGEND BON SCOTT IS OUT NOW.

17 SEP 2021

into his too‑short life. From the age of 16 he spent 18 months in jail, which had a profound effect. The details are a bit muddled, but it appears he was trying to help a girl and stole some petrol before being caught by the cops. “He was taken into Fremantle prison; they still had the gallows up there,” Apter says. “He was horrified by the experience. He was really close and really tight with his parents, and he was humiliated by this shame that he brought on the family.” Moving from WA, Bon spent 10 years in bands before joining AC/DC, “the longest musical apprenticeship in Australian history” according to Apter, who was keen to explore Bon’s “stepping stones” towards stardom. When Bon sang ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’, he’d lived it. He started out in The Valentines, all neat hair, matching suits and polite-boy smiles, before Fraternity, more prog-rock, which took him to a farmhouse in the Adelaide Hills where they camped out like The Band in the US, making music and tripping. A YouTube clip of Bon playing recorder and singing ‘Seasons of Change’ shows the versatility of his voice. By the time he headed up AC/DC, he had a clear sense of how to get media attention and portray himself as the larrikin rocker with the skin-tight shorts, bawdy humour and anti-authoritarian streak. Despite being seen as a working-class hero, an iconic figure loved the world over, Bon’s reckless

PHOTO BY GETTY

JEFF APTER

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

ut together by the good folk at GOMA, Ghost Stories: Spirits, Hauntings and Worlds Beyond (10 Sep-28 Nov) is a global survey of vintage spooky classics in which spirits run free! Brisbanites, don’t miss the woozy time-slip romance of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge (1987), Fritz Lang’s phantasmagoric vision of a criminal mastermind in The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933), or broadcaster Michael Parkinson getting possessed by a demon and babbling in tongues (no, really!) in the infamous BBC spoof Ghostwatch (1992). For everyone else, a number of films can be streamed at home. Evil houses rattle visitors in The Haunting (1963, for rent on Apple+). Director Robert Wise sidesteps any gross-out tactics, using uneasy widescreen framing, lens distortion and angsty dramatic lighting to send shivers up the spine in this adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s Gothic classic The Haunting of Hill House. Unwelcome guests also wreak havoc in the original Poltergeist (1982), directed by Tobe Hooper and written and produced by Steven Spielberg (streaming on Binge). One family’s Reagan-era dream of suburban bliss is soured by an irascible ghost, who shakes the walls, moves furniture and kidnaps their young daughter inside the TV. Tricked out with gaudy, then‑state-of-the-art special effects, this satire is as silly as it is scary – though for real belly laughs, it’s hard to go past the after-life antics of Beetlejuice (1988, streaming on Stan, Netflix, Foxtel). ABB

BEETLEJUICE! BEETLEJUICE! BEETLEJUI...

PIG 

First-time director Michael Sarnoski understands the wounding potential of Nicolas Cage’s face. Here, Cage plays an ex-chef and truffle hunter, Robin, who sets out to retrieve his cherished pig after it’s kidnapped. Soon, restaurant supplier Amir (Alex Wolff) is entangled in the chase, as Robin journeys into Portland’s cut-throat culinary scene, where everyone is after the newest, high-concept dish. Despite wearing the clothes of a classic revenge flick, Pig doesn’t seek bloody retribution – Robin truly just wants his foraging companion back. Bolstered by Cage’s brooding performance, Sarnoski delivers an earnest reflection on the isolation that can accompany grief. Though the film’s nimble pace occasionally allows plot details to fall by the wayside, the careful attention that is granted to the characters’ internal lives ensures that each elegiac scene brims with purpose. Like the sweat, grime and blood that amass on Cage’s drawn cheeks, Pig hardens into a lasting, tender-hearted lament. TIIA KELLY RIDE THE EAGLE

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

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Leif (Jake Johnson, New Girl) is a mellow guy. He plays the bongos, lives on someone else’s property and smokes a lot of dope. He hasn’t seen his free-spirited mother Honey (Susan Sarandon) since he was 12, so the only thing he feels when he gets news of her death is minor curiosity about the fancy cabin she’s left him in the California woods. There’s a catch: to get the house, he must tick off items on a hippie to-do list presented by Honey via VHS tape, giving her one last chance to rekindle a connection he’s not sure he really wants. Written by Johnson and director Trent O’Donnell, this is a gentle, low-key film that’s constantly undercutting its back-to-nature vibe. The scenery’s great and the pressure is off, but people are still self-interested, nature will mess you up, and relationships require effort. The supporting cast is strong (JK Simmons is always a delight), but this is a vehicle for Johnson’s gruff charm – even if Leif’s dog Nora increasingly steals the show. ANTHONY MORRIS

BIG DEAL 

For a political system ostensibly based on public representation, the manner in which this representation is meted out in Australia can be bogglingly obscure. In this new documentary, director Craig Reucassel (the ABC’s cheeky smile with a conscience) and presenter Christiaan Van Vuuren (of Bondi Hipsters YouTube fame) seek to demystify the pay-to-play machinations of political donations. It turns out it’s even more dodgy than we thought – a big bag of lobbyists and corporate interests who enjoy access and influence over our elected representatives. And while some members reckon it ought to change, the major parties don’t want to get caught short in the process. Instead of the sort of cynical prank that you might expect from a film led by two rogue comedians, Big Deal works as a surprisingly sincere call to grassroots action. It’s not fair, but if having a say is beyond our paygrade, then Australians need to first band together to be able to properly represent ourselves. LACHY MCKENZIE

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

THE SCHOOL THAT TRIED TO END RACISM  | ABC TV + IVIEW FROM 21 SEPTEMBER

BOYFRIEND DUNGEON

 | PRIME VIDEO

 | SWITCH, XBOX ONE, WINDOWS

“Drag is a revolution,” a character says in this screen adaptation of a West End stage show – the latest to join the trend of movie musical releases this year. This toe-tapping, high-energy feature stars the captivating Max Harwood as Jamie New, a 16-year-old teen from Sheffield navigating high school’s very real challenges, especially for a gay kid who’s determined to wear a dress to prom. Inspired by true events, Jamie is accompanied on his journey to become a drag queen by best friend Pritti (Lauren Patel), and his unconditionally supportive mother Margaret (Sarah Lancashire, Clocking Off). Their love keeps the embers of his dream burning despite its darker moments. Like any musical, it relies on some suspension of disbelief, and occasionally slips into theatricality at the expense of character development. While you might end up wishing that you could share its euphoric choreography with others in a cinema, the story’s feel-good sweetness effortlessly bounces its way from the brightly coloured prom disco lights onto our small screens. DEBBIE ZHOU

It’s a tale as old as time. You meet someone, you hit it off – you find out they can transform into a sentient weapon and, together, you battle monsters in the local dungeon. Okay, so maybe it’s not such a classic tale. Boyfriend Dungeon is a hack’n’slash dungeon crawler and dating sim all in one. It’s a unique blend, balancing combat and romantic interludes relatively well, though the game’s armoury of ideas sometimes lacks the smithing that would have given it a razor edge. The dungeon crawling is chaotic and fun, and outside the “dunj” there are dynamic characters and writing, bolstered by excellent representation and diverse stories. But while the first few hours of the game feel promising, this doesn’t quite carry through to the second half, with the dungeons getting somewhat repetitive and the content hitting a number of pacing issues. Boyfriend Dungeon is a refreshing take on two very different genres, and for the most part it’s a fun and engaging experience; it’s just a shame we only saw the hilt of its potential. CAITLIN CRONIN

ast your mind back, if you can, to June 2018, when New York magazine dubbed America’s sweatiest months the “Summer of Scam”. This was in the period post-Fyre Festival, pre-global pandemic, when beguiling headlines read something like, ‘Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Are Making a McDonald’s Monopoly Crime Caper’ or ‘Thieves Stole $40,000 Worth of Bugs and Lizards in Extremely Confusing Heist’ (I’d watch that docuseries). The scam content kept coming – Dirty John (Netflix), The Inventor (Binge), Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult (Stan) – leading to the trend’s redesignation as “Scam Season”. Three years on, these moreish stories of grifters, sharks, love frauds and charlatans still draw in audiences like moths to schadenfreude. One of the latest is LuLaRich (Prime Video), an absorbing account of dodgy dealings allegedly wheeled by multi-level marketing empire LuLaRoe. Once a beacon of girlboss liberation for (conservative, white) mumpreneurs, who sold the company’s lurid leggings from the convenience of their repurposed guest bedrooms, LuLaRoe here stands accused of sexism, racism, ableism, plagiarism and pyramid scheming, among other things. Co-founders DeAnne and Mark Stidham sure make for a fascinating case study in performative pop feminism and the cult of positivity. LuLaRich is another home run from Fyre Fraud co-directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason. Here’s hoping they option that bug heist story before we run out of pages in the scam calendar. AK

17 SEP 2021

EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE

OH LA LA: LULAROE’S DEANNE AND MARK STIDHAM

“Could this simple solution stop racism in its tracks, by identifying what causes it?” asks journalist Marc Fennell in this bold ABC TV docuseries, modelled on the UK series of the same name. The three-parter spotlights a pilot program intended to teach a diverse class of NSW students about racial prejudice, privilege and colonial trauma – topics often elided from Australian curricula. The scope is ambitious: of course, there is nothing simple about racism, and the series sometimes runs the risk of flattening complexity. But Fennell and team skilfully reveal the value of generous educators and historical truth, as this cast of vibrant children show they can unpack and understand weighty ideas. Aiding this is director John Karabelas’ careful attention to the children’s emotions. In a searing scene, a boy recounts his experience of a verbal attack and whispers, “A story that has been in your heart for years is really hard to tell.” This is a vital and confident step in making those stories easier to tell, and overcome. CLAIRE CAO

Music Reviews

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

as the pandemic left artists more willing to experiment, to release their rough demos and to share their small, one-off projects? Aisles – Angel Olsen’s new EP – is an unusual turn for the Ashvillebased artist: a suite of 80s covers. And not the classy kind either – this is an EP that delves straight into the sentimental and chintzy, full of songs from novelty acts, one-hit wonders and artists whose biggest audiences were in gaudy Euro clubs. On Aisles, Olsen adds her warbling, theatrical vocals to the likes of Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’ and Men Without Hats’ ridiculous ‘Safety Dance’. She certainly looks the part: blue eye shadow up to her eyebrows, ghostly foundation, harsh red blush and a choppy mullet. Over the past decade, Olsen has shown herself to be an adroit and interesting interpreter of classic songs. I often find myself reaching for her rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Tougher Than the Rest’, which swaps out the original’s dated synths and drum machine sound for stark guitar and distortion. It’s devastating, exposing the cracking machismo of Springsteen’s original protagonist. On Aisles, Olsen doesn’t play with the arrangements too much, instead opting to draw out the original hits’ latent spookiness, especially true for the EP’s grand version of Billy Idol’s ‘Eyes Without a Face’. But it’s her version of Laura Branigan’s hit ‘Gloria’ that feels truly transformative. She stretches out the track so it becomes languid and ominous. The cheap 80s arrangements are foregone for a dense thicket of foreboding synths and violins. Never has a disco hit been so creepy. IT

ANGEL OLSEN: CREEPY 80S DISCO

@itrimboli

THE HUNGER MARCUS WHALE 

Reverent, lustful devotion is the keynote of the third solo offering from Marcus Whale, a propulsive force across Sydney’s art and music scenes over the past decade. With its layered vocals, shimmering synth blips, and a touch of trance, The Hunger speaks of Whale’s formative years in the St Mary’s Cathedral Choir as much as the dark but dancey electronica he’s turned out as a member of Collarbones and BV. Narrated by a vampire’s familiar – a servant who yearns for a transformative, fanged kiss – this concept album takes its name from Tony Scott’s languid erotic horror film of 1983, in which an undead Catherine Deneuve bequeaths to David Bowie and Susan Sarandon her taste for blood. “Hungry to be/Just like you,” Whale intones on the album’s tremulous, keys-driven title track. As in his last album, Lucifer, dedicated to the fallen angel, Whale couches his vision of queer desire in a fantastical metaphor (recalling the work of experimental pop composer Owen Pallett), and so slakes a thirst for high drama – his and ours alike. KEVA YORK

SCREEN VIOLENCE CHVRCHES

DONDA KANYE WEST

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Four albums in, Chvrches are fighting to survive a few different breeds of bad guy. There’s the near-literal monsters of ‘Final Girl’, with splashy, driving cymbals that could easily fit into a horror-movie weapon montage: “I need to get out now/While most of me is still intact,” sings Lauren Mayberry, her voice more clear and urgent than ever. Small-screen terror is a presence, too, with songs on social media’s double standards and gaslighting – Hitchcock never showed us anything as voyeuristically creepy as our online lives. Below the lyrics and alarm-bell vocals, though, the Scottish trio risk sounding too cohesive. The band are at their best when cavernous beats and synths open up and expand, like on empowering stand-out ‘California’. Maybe this survival story is about knowing when to get out alive, rather than losing blood to a faceless opponent on the other side of the screen – as is the case when goth godfather Robert Smith drops in to provide commiserating harmonies on ‘How Not to Drown’. ELIZA JANSSEN

In the anaemic Ye (2018) and the straightforward gospel of Jesus Is King (2019), it seemed like one of the most formidable, mercurial streaks in modern pop was beginning to wane. Kanye West’s 10th LP Donda is not a return to the dizzying heights reached a decade prior, though it does invoke glory with awe-struck moments across its sprawling 27 tracks. Kanye’s vocal delivery is palpably urgent on ‘Off the Grid’, and a reunion with Jay Z on ‘Jail’ comes equipped with a chorus made for drunken shout‑alongs. Gospel elements shine on album highlights including the piano-laden ‘Come to Life’, bearing the affirmation of “You know where to find me, ridin’ on a silver lining” that resonates as earnest even if it is coming from a card‑carrying member of the billionaire class. The refrain of “We gonna be okay” on ‘24’ also goes a long way to leaning from self-righteous to righteous, emblematic of an uplifted mood fitting for an album named in tribute to Ye’s late mum. LACHLAN KANONIUK

Book Reviews

Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor @melissajfulton

ow do you organise your books? I’m asking because I’ve just moved house, and I’m overwhelmed. They’re everywhere! Maybe I should alphabetise them. Or group them according to genre. Or go full Ikea catalogue and colour block them. But the truth is I like the randomness – a bit of autofiction here, a shock of horror over there, and a handful of moody character studies intermixed throughout gives my shelves the same charming and happenstance quality as a short story collection. One I’ve been enjoying lately is New Australian Fiction 2021, from literary journal Kill Your Darlings. Featuring such local gems – and Big Issue contributors – as Brooke Dunnell, Eliza Henry-Jones and Alice Bishop, the 16 stories here are as individual as the writers themselves, spanning settings as varied as a Violet Town hotel-motel to a vegan restaurant on the Gold Coast and a five-star hotel en route to the Sahara. Still, as series editor Rebecca Starford explains, these stories are united in their purpose: “Each seek to find pathways to connect with you, the reader, in a world transformed… They are written for us, and speak to us, and that is a marvellous thing.” Just like my ramshackle collection – it’s not especially random at all, in that I’ve been nourished and nurtured by each and every book on the shelves. I can’t always find what I want when I want it, but browsing makes for a delightful potter. Once I finish unpacking… MF

We’re used to seeing Bryan Brown on our TV and cinema screens. In a career that has spanned 40 years, he has made a name for himself in films such as Breaker Morant, and iconic TV hit The Thorn Birds. Brown now marks his 74th year by heading in a whole new direction, publishing his debut short story collection, Sweet Jimmy, a series of gritty crime stories set in Sydney, in which a diverse group of blokes from all walks of life get into strife and end up taking the law into their own hands in search of revenge. Brown has a fine eye for people, for the quirky and the ordinary alike, and brings a dark humour to his tales that makes them all too believable. Sewn together, they offer a unique view of Sydney, it’s multiculturalism and its tensions, that make this both an enjoyable and a valuable collection. These are stories told by a natural raconteur, employing a new skillset with both eloquence and wit; well crafted, and hopefully the first in a long series of offerings from a new talent and an old friend alike. CRAIG BUCHANAN HOW TO MAKE A BASKET JAZZ MONEY 

In her debut poetry collection, Wiradjuri artist Jazz Money takes readers on a sensory passage, honouring the Dreaming, matriarchal legacy and “those who fight for justice”. The joy of Blak queer love is celebrated, as is Money’s love of place, language and “red dust” Country. Written in both Wiradjuri and English, these poems shift effortlessly from the depths of romantic vulnerability, through to ceremony and song, then to that of a rally cry. Through ‘Listen’, Money beckons readers to the beat of a drum. ‘Gully Song’ evokes misty imagery in a few carefully bound words. The political landscape is referenced throughout – from the pandemic and bushfires to Pauline Hanson and the imagining of a Blak prime minister – though there is a refreshing absence of over-intellectualising in this collection. how to make a basket harmonises bursts of lyrical raw energy with a melodic call to arms. Striking a dynamic balance between old-worldly adeptness and present-day resonance, Money’s is an honest craft and a very promising voice. LAURA LA ROSA

BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU SALLY ROONEY 

Sally Rooney’s follow-up to her worldwide bestselling Normal People is a return to familiar territory and something new. Like her first two novels, it explores romance and friendship through angst-ridden literary young women. But the characters and their concerns are moving into their thirties. Famous novelist Alice has moved to a coastal Irish town following a breakdown. There, she dates Felix, a warehouse worker. Eileen, a Dublin literary magazine editor, reconnects with childhood crush Simon, but is a way off risking their friendship for a relationship. In long, luxurious emails, the women discuss it all, diving into digressions on religion, capitalism and history, questioning the value of love and art in our age of looming environmental collapse. The intimate narration of the early novels is largely replaced by an omniscient third-person, which holds the reader at arm’s length. And the physical distance between the central characters for the first two-thirds of the book means less of the crackling dialogue that is Rooney’s great strength. The final third, when they come together, shines brightest. JO CASE

17 SEP 2021

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SWEET JIMMY BRYAN BROWN

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

When we compare ourselves to other people, we’re comparing ourselves to our idea of that person. That person who always gets the things you don’t, the one who falls on their feet, blithely oblivious to your struggles. That person might be having a wonderful time all the time. That person might be well-balanced and well-fed and thoroughly satisfied in every way. Maybe you don’t even dislike them, but they are celebrated and you are overlooked, and a nagging, unpleasant defensiveness itches at you when you think of them. That’s okay, but it’s also a waste of your energy. Also? They are probably terrible at something you are brilliant at. Like crosswords, or making somebody you love laugh, or understanding how great your favourite song is. Also? You don’t know. This person could worry too much or wake in the night confronted by their own inadequacies or (if they are being unkind to you and it helps you to visualise it) are mere days away from being eaten by dragons. Point is, you are not them. And it’s better to be you. Be a version of you that makes you feel good. Be the you that sings (however shyly) where the acoustics are good. In a hallway. In an underground car park. In the shower. Be the you that dogs greet and cats smooch. Be the you who last made somebody laugh. Or the you who let somebody who was agitated go first.

Remember that other people exist, who aren’t you, and don’t know you, and don’t know any of the people you know. People who speak different languages and operate in entirely different towns or cities on far‑flung parts of this planet. People who work slowly at one thing all day. People with really specific interests that have nothing to do with yours. People who have spent their entire lives getting better at circus arts or cheese‑making or the intricate and frustrating science of very small things that may well change the world. There are people whose interests are so intense and focused that even finding out about them might make you briefly shy about your own life, as though maybe you took a wrong path, your decisions and ambitions somehow diluted by this person’s lifelong obsession with historical re-enactments or underwater hockey or aerospace engineering. Embrace that, because it means nobody has the right answer. It means there is no right answer. I once showed a friend of mine a photograph of himself from a few decades ago, where he was at a party, mid-sentence, looking keenly around the room. “Oh wow,” he said, taking the photo from me. “I was in such a hurry. Why was I in such a hurry?” They say youth is wasted on the young, but maybe life is wasted on the living. That is, we’re all in a bit of a hurry. We’d like to know the one true path, please. Is that person getting a ticket before me? Do I need to be more like them? You don’t. One of the best things about society is how we divide things up. We specialise. Some of us are doctors so we can rely on them when we’re sick and don’t have to keep all the doctor things in our head because we’re artists, or mechanics, or scientists who study really small things. Someone needs to be the mechanic. Someone needs to be the scientist. Be you. Maybe you don’t even know what that is. Maybe it’s a bunch of confusing stuff. That’s okay. Just don’t feel you need to be anything you’re not. Sing in a hallway. Do a crossword.

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.

t is a truth universally acknowledged (thanks to a bloke called Jean-Paul Sartre) that hell is other people. Other people, let’s face it, can be complete jerks. They pick their fingernails. They pretend to be more virtuous than they are. They say very stupid things and shout out of car windows and use leaf blowers outside your window at 7am. They break your heart and are thoughtlessly cruel and say things that make no sense whatsoever and don’t even care that they’re wrong. Sometimes though, other people aren’t the point. Sometimes, other people can even be kind and funny and generous and make you giggle when you least expect it. But sometimes they’re just not worth worrying about at all. Public Service Announcement: hell is you caring about the wrong people. There are so many other things you could be doing instead.

17 SEP 2021

Better to Be You

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

PHOTOS BY PETRINA TINSLAY

Tastes Like Home Neil Perry

Roast Chicken Ingredients Serves 4 Handful of oregano Extra virgin olive oil Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

Neil says…

Take the chicken out of the refrigerator 2 hours before cooking. It’s important to start with a good bird, so free-range or organic is a must. You get back what you put in. It is helpful, but not crucial, to remove the wishbone, as it will make the bird easier to carve later. To do this, place your chicken on a chopping board, on its back with the legs facing away from you. Cut off the neck and pull back the skin to reveal the wishbone. Using a small sharp knife, cut down along the outside of the wishbone to where it joins the breastbone and cut through at these points, going all the way down to your chopping board. Now cut around the V-shaped bone and carefully pull it out – it should come away quite easily. Season the inside of the chicken with salt, and stuff with the lemon quarters and herbs. Truss the chicken, then season the outside. (Alternatively, truss and season the bird the day before, refrigerate overnight and remove 2 hours before cooking.) Preheat the oven to 220°C. Rub the bird all over with olive oil and put it into a roasting tin large enough to hold it comfortably. Roast the chicken for 45 minutes – when it’s ready, the skin should be golden brown. Remove from the oven, transfer to a bowl and leave to rest in a warm place for 10 minutes. Put the bird on a chopping board and cut off the legs. Cut the legs in half by sliding your knife between drumstick and thigh. Remove the breasts with the wings attached, then cut them diagonally in half, to give you a thicker half with the wing attached and a thinner, slightly longer half. Take four large plates and put half a leg on each one, then half a breast. Remove the lemon quarters from the cavity and squeeze two of them into the bowl you rested the bird in. Mix with the chicken juices in the bowl, then add a little olive oil and lots of pepper, stir well and pour some over each serving of chicken. Serve immediately.

here is nothing like a perfect roast chook with all the trimmings for a Sunday lunch or dinner. This dish has a really strong relationship with my memories of my mother and father. Dad really taught me all about great seasonal produce and that fresh meant fresh from the ground or sea, not off the shelf. It was a very privileged childhood in regards to eating well and understanding how fruit and vegetables grow, how fish should be caught and treated, and how meat can be eaten from nose to tail and, importantly, respected and looked after when cooking. You see, my father was a butcher, gardener, fisherman and a talented cook. Most of what we ate he either gathered, caught or brought home from our butcher shop. However, the roasting of the chickens on a Sunday lunch fell to my mum, Margaret. She was always bang-on with the cooking, and we always had roast potatoes and, more often than not, boiled peas with butter and mint. Mum would always roast a lot of chooks, so usually I would be enjoying a chicken and mayo sandwich in my lunch box on Monday at school. These great memories remind me of the generosity and hospitality that Mum radiated and the way the family would eat together and laugh, argue and spend a wonderful day together. This memory is one of the reasons that I have named my new restaurant Margaret and dedicated the book to her. She was the rock on which my life was really built, and the reason my restaurants have been run through the Care philosophy.

PLAN TO RECREATE THIS DISH AT HOME? TAG US WITH YOUR ROAST BIRD! @BIGISSUEAUSTRALIA #TASTESLIKEHOME

EVERYTHING I LOVE TO COOK BY NEIL PERRY IS OUT NOW.

17 SEP 2021

TIP Don’t throw away the carcass and bones from the roast chicken – they make a lovely stock. Cover with water in a saucepan and simmer for a couple of hours, then strain the stock through a muslin-lined sieve. It will keep for a few days in the fridge and up to 6 months in the freezer.

2kg organic or free-range chicken 1 lemon, quartered Handful of thyme

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45.

By Lingo! by Lee Murray leemurray.id.au MACARONI

R D N A

Sudoku

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

8 7

1 7 4 6 4 3

CLUES 5 letters ___ Allan Poe, writer ___ Agassi, former tennis star ___ MacDowell, US actress Low point Union of three 6 letters ___ to, indulge Extended Long outburst Moving firework Spoke wildly 7 letters Coated with emulsion Copied illegally Enjoyed yourself at a do Pongo’s mate in One Hundred and One Dalmatians Published 8 letters Rate of inclination Very large star (2 words)

by websudoku.com

1 2 2

7 9 8 2

9 8 7 1 3

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Album cover 6 Abba 9 Squat 10 Ergo

11 Kilo 13 Commencement 16 Hypnotism 18 Torso 19 Aioli 20 Face cloth 21 Sporadically 25 Amok 26 Stag 27 Toxin 28 Eddy 29 Adolescent

DOWN 1 Also 2 Blue 3 Metropolitan 4 Oleum 5 Ergonomic 7 Bridegroom 8 Apostrophe 12 Gesticulates 14 Cheapskate 15 Up to no good 17 Inflicted 22 Angel 23 Axle 24 Unit

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ and ‘I Still Have Faith In You’ 2 See colours 3 Tattarrattat 4 Two 5 Coca-Cola 6 Three: two gold and one bronze 7 Red 8 South Africa 9 Ray Meagher, 33 years playing Alf Stewart in Home and Away 10 12 11 The Great Plague 12 The 2017 Australian Open 13 December 28, 1989 14 It ceased being published due to racist content 15 250ml 16 To wear a face mask so that the mouth is covered but the nose sticks out over the top 17 Nigeria 18 Karl 19 False – sharks are roughly 100 million years older 20 Red blood cell

17 SEP 2021

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

Word Builder

Macaroni has been pasta all along, but the word took a rather odd detour in the 18th century. In 1700s Britain, there was a tradition where rich young men would take a gap year of sorts and travel around Europe. After they returned from their Grand Tour, they had invariably developed a taste for an Italian dish called macaroni. These men were known for their over-the-top clothing and tall powdered wigs. People started referring to them (and their style) as macaroni – and it wasn’t a compliment. The macaroni, however, proudly took the word and used it to name themselves. They would also use macaroni to mean “cool” or “fashionable”. And now you know why Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.

by Steve Knight

Quick Clues

THE ANSWERS FOR THE CRYPTIC AND QUICK CLUES ARE THE SAME. ANSWERS PAGE 43.

11 12

13 14

DOWN

22 23

Cryptic Clues

1 As well (4) 2 Colour (4) 3 Relating to a city (12) 4 Corrosive liquid (5) 5 Work from home in comfort (9) 7 Newlywed (10) 8 Punctuation mark (10) 12 Gestures during speech (12) 14 Scrooge (10) 15 Planning mischief (2,2,2,4) 17 Forced upon (9) 22 Heavenly being (5) 23 Rod (4) 24 Section (4)

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Lumbar spasm restrains fellow record holder (5,5) 6 70s pop stars, blues king, teetotallers embracing…

1 Too windy – solar panel missing? (4) 2 Down clue initially 1-across? (4) 3 Dancing motel patron captures the heart of Keith

(4) 9 …very little exercise (5) 10 Monster gets upset as a result (4) 11 Reports of major blue involving a thousand (4) 13 Opening comment about Anglican fellows (12) 16 Putting under the goalposts, adding points with my conversion (9) 18 Spooner’s pain after kicking trunk? (5) 19 Bonsai olives contain mayonnaise (5) 20 Dial 10050 HOT MESS for a little towelling (4,5) 21 Rock, rap, disco with partner sometimes (12) 25 In a mess, or thumbs up? (4) 26 Sell those awful green tops for a buck (4) 27 Poison and Kiss into blues (5) 28 It’s currently going around? (4) 29 Youth gets a sniff of unemployment benefits (10)

ACROSS

1 Record sleeve (5,5) 6 Pop group (4) 9 Crouch down (5) 10 Therefore (4) 11 A unit of weight (4) 13 Beginning (12) 16 Form of psychic therapy (9) 18 Trunk (5) 19 Garlic mayonnaise (5) 20 Small towel (4,5) 21 At irregular intervals (12) 25 In an uncontrolled manner (4) 26 M ale deer (4) 27 Poison (5) 28 Swirling current (4) 29 Youth (10)

Urban (12) Sulphuric acid strips whole umbrella (5) Fit for office work, 10ac doesn’t have a PA? (9) Ride in vacant bug with space for newlywed (10) Mark can be possessive and perhaps too weird (10) 12 Jerk enters East US leg, surfing waves (12) 14 Stiff from cold and piles, Kate… (10) 15 …Upton (shivering) hugs dog that’s mischievous (2,2,2,4) 17 Ed, if Clint shuffles, may be dealt out (9) 22 Beauty article upset Glen (5) 23 Rod left in chopper (4) 24 Regiment is out of shape and gutless (4) 4 5 7 8

SUDOKU PAGE 43

4 8 7 5 6 1 2 9 3

9 3 5 4 7 2 8 1 6

1 2 6 9 8 3 5 4 7

8 1 4 2 3 7 6 5 9

5 7 2 6 9 4 3 8 1

6 9 3 1 5 8 7 2 4

7 4 8 3 1 5 9 6 2

3 6 1 8 2 9 4 7 5

2 5 9 7 4 6 1 3 8

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Edgar Andre Andie Nadir Triad 6 Pander Ranged Tirade Petard Ranted 7 Painted Pirated Partied Perdita Printed 8 Gradient Red giant 9 Predating

17 SEP 2021

Crossword

Click 1996

Liam Gallagher and Damon Albarn

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty Images

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

fter Nirvana had their early 90s moment in the sun – although “sun” and “Nirvana” don’t feel like they belong in the same sentence – it was time for the pendulum to swing again, back to Britain. Leading the charge were Oasis. Singer Liam Gallagher had joined a band called Rain, and suggested they change their name. Thereafter his older brother Noel joined, demanding he be the songwriter and leader. He brought tunes and a leader’s bearing, insisting their goal be commercial success. Then there was Blur, who since the late 80s had been making music with a literary bent under various names – one being Seymour, after a JD Salinger novella (yawn). But the homesickness of singer Damon Albarn during a US tour, and his resentment of grunge, turned Blur back towards embracing their Englishness, just as Cool Britannia was burgeoning. “If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I’m getting rid of grunge,” he said. And so it was that Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) was succeeded by Parklife a year later, which elevated them from an arty band to marquee stars, their album entering the UK charts at No#1 – just as Oasis’ debut

Definitely, Maybe would months later. Britpop, and a new rivalry, was born. It was just like the Stones versus the Beatles, like ’N Sync versus Backstreet Boys. And so to 1995’s “Battle of Britpop” when the two bands released a single on the same day – after both had waited a week to let the other go first. “The whole shame about the thing is that the two songs are shit,” Noel said years later. “[Blur’s] ‘Country House’ is fucking dogshit and ‘Roll With It’ has never been played by anybody since the band split up.” The next year the rivalry found its outlet on the football pitch. The Gallagher boys loved their football, following Manchester City. Albarn was a latecomer to the game, plumping for Chelsea. Liam, the lippy Mancunian, all attitude, supposedly pulled down Damon’s shorts. Fast forward to 2021, when Chelsea beat City in the UEFA Champions final. Noel was there. “As the game finishes, I stomp out the ground in a huff, and who’s the first person I meet outside the ground? Damon Albarn! He goes to one Chelsea game every 10 years!” As to that rivalry, Albarn told the BBC in 2014: “I think Oasis were better, I do.”