AUTUMN/WINTER 1 2012
The rhetoric
1
2
Editor’s Letter Dearest reader,
Y
ou have entered the world of the Rhetoric. It was not an easy world to create, springing first from flimsy thoughts and then slowly becoming substance before our eyes. Creating deadlines, writing for a public eye and trying to join it all in a common theme has certainly been a challenge! As with our own beginning, we present to you the theme of new beginnings. Creative writing, poetry, stories from around the world; we have packaged a little bit of art into a box and set it out in front of you. When creating this magazine, there was only one thing that I was really looking for: to show the world a piece of passion, through whatever source the individual artist felt possible. I wanted to allow the freedom to express anything youâ€&#x;re passionate about in a single medium and I hope that, in the end, this will be what has combined all of our pieces together.
Nelly Matorina 2 COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY VICTORIA SAVORY
CONTENTS 3
PHOTOGRAPH BY YANA BELOKON
THIS ISSUE Creative Writing
12
Dear person who stole my wallet
13
The Universe Meets Here: A Recollection of Beauty
19
A Technicolour Beginning
Music
82
Festival Review : Northside Festival
83
23
Dan Rutman: Sweetest Fruit EP
87
Resurgence
32
Jukebox Playlists
91
Words are like healing drugs
34
Forged Innovation
38
Poetry
96
Technology
44
Wisdom found on a hilltop
97
Africa, My Home, My Heart The emergence of a QR code
45
98
NFC Technology: the age of innovation
46
What happens when you melt music
100
Why did Google really buy Motorola Mobility?
47
Travel
48
Four Parts of Pangaea
49
Best Benches To Do Your Hoboing at This Summer
67
3
The guide book to hidden beaches, hamster wheels and the most creative duvet covers in existence
75
Reflective Writing 104 The Beginning to an End
105
Making every day a new beginning
109
Names and Places
115
Reviews
117
‘Kafka on the Shore’ Review
118
Spiked Movie Theatre Drinks: An Inception Review
119
CONTENTS/THEMATIC PIECES 4
23
19
The Universe Meets Here: A Recollection of Beauty
91
A Technicolour Beginning
Jukebox Playlists
13 109
Dear Person Who Stole my Wallet
Making every day a new beginning
34
Words are like healing drugs
Names and Places
115 119
32 105
Resurgence
The Beginning to an End
What happens when you melt music
4
Spiked Movie Theatre Drinks
100
PHOTOGRAPH BY SOFIA JUL
CONTRIBUTERS
CECILIE OLESEN 5
MALASHREE SUVEDI
NELLY MATORINA LYDIA DEICHMANN
NELLY MATORINA
Contributors
JENNIFER AHNTHY PHAM
WRITERS
ANNE ROLD CASSANDRA WEE
5
LYDIA DEICHMANN
SOFIA JUL
CONTRIBUTERS
6
JENNIFER AHNTHY PHAM
MEGAN PHIPPS
EDITORS
MALASHREE SUVEDI
CHRISTINA ELISE HOLM-LARSEN
MARIE JO MOLTRUP
6
LYDIA DEICHMANN
CONTRIBUTERS 7
ILJA MOISEJEV
PHOTOGRPAHERS/ARTISTS
YANA BELOKON
ELIZAVETA SAMODUROVA
MEGAN PHIPPS
JOE HONG ALEKSANDRA DUBROVSKA SOFIA JUL VICTORIA SAVORY
CAROLYN ROTENBERG CHRISTINA ELISE HOLM LARSEN CASSANDRA WEE 7
BRENNA SENGER
THE RHETORIC. AUTUMN/WINTER 8
2012
FEATURES
northside festival page 83 PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNE ROLD
A day in pictures page 80 8
PHOTOGRAPH BY SOFIA JUL
FEATURES PHOTOGRAPH BY CASSANDRA WEE 9
9
get out of my dreams and onto my head page 39
10
Creative writing DEAR PERSON WHO STOLE MY WALLET | THE UNIVERSE MEETS HERE | RESURGENCE | WORDS ARE LIKE HEALING DRUGS | FORGED INNOVATION
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PHOTOGRAPH BY YANA BELOKON
CREATIVE WRITING 11
Dear Person Who Stole My Wallet a letter by ANNE ROLD
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PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS PAGE BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING
Dear12Person Who Stole My Wallet, I hope that you are reading this right now, and you get a little bit of a weird feeling, perhaps a little cringing feeling in your stomach or warmness eroding from behind your ears, like I do when I get caught in an awkward situation. I don’t mean you any harm, as I think you probably stole my wallet because you are a weak person in some sense or another. Maybe you are a young guy, and you don’t have a lot going for you, and you are not very smart or particularly sexy, and you feel kind of inferior a lot of the time, so stealing things from other people gives you a sense of power. Maybe you are a young woman, and you like experimenting, and you get a little rush when you push yourself into situations where you could get caught, and you like to dance on that little line of insecurity that other people call morals and boundaries. Maybe you kept it, maybe you threw it out, it’s hard to guess even if you are a simple person to figure out. I hope, most of all, that you are a poor person, and that you really needed that tiny bit of cash that was tightly rolled and squeezed into the innermost pocket of the wallet. I hope you took the coins of foreign currency a
and exchanged them somewhere, because the Canadian
12 and toonies would probably add up to something loonies
you could buy yourself a small meal for.
CREATIVE WRITING 13
I wonder what you have been thinking about the items you found when you opened my wallet. Maybe you didn’t even look at all my little precious memories, all pushed together to fit a whole life’s worth of treasures into a paperback sized leather pouch of segregating rooms and secret zippers. Maybe you saw all the stamp-sized photographs and Polaroids of little children, of girls that I used to know when they and I were younger, boyfriends that I have loved, and that one odd photograph of a Mexican-looking man with a moustache that I found by a passport photo booth at a train station in Berlin. I wonder if you thought I was related to any of these faces, if I was a mature woman with my own children,
and
Maybe you
a
Mexican-looking
husband,
perhaps.
became a little intrigued, and since you
obviously don’t have an issue with going through other people’s personal things, you took out all my cards and pictures and notes and lined them up on a table somewhere. I wonder, when you looked at all my cards, whether you sorted them all afterwards, sitting them next to each other and making some kind of pattern or categorizing them. 13
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING 14
Maybe you made a color scheme, and put the brightly yellow health insurance card in one end, and the red blood donator’s card in the other, like I always do. My dad says that’s because I’m a creative person, and my sister is a practical person, because she always lines up her cards after the numbers on them. Maybe you took all the cards with my face on them and looked at my personal information, like my birth date, and tried to figure out what kind of person I could be. Maybe you went on the Internet and googled me, or maybe you tried to find me on Facebook. If you looked at my pictures, you probably also laughed a little when you saw my driver’s license photo. And then you probably wondered why it was Canadian, when I have so many Danish cards and my name is very un-international. I feel a little weird now, realizing that you know my name and my birth date and the name of my family doctor and the number you can call if you would like to talk to him between 8 and 9 on weekdays, or between 12 and 6 on weekends. I hope that you feel a little weird too, because it’s a lonesome feeling when you can’t share it, like so many other emotions. 14
CREATIVE WRITING 15 Well, Person Who Stole my Wallet, I might not have your bright yellow
health card or your picture ID or any images containing people you might or might not know, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t try to figure out who you are. The interesting thing is that, even though you technically know everything about me, information that is usually only shared with the government, doctors, and teachers, I might actually know you better because you are the person who stole my wallet, and I think it takes a specific type of person to do something like that. I hope you keep my little treasures safe and maybe try to figure out who I am, because I hope that the little memories, as ripped and worn and random as they are, might make me seem like an interesting person. I have given up the hope that you will return my things to me, my little precious collection of nostalgia and reminders, but I still can’t help but wonder whether you appreciate the irony in this situation. I don’t need your personal information to know you, when the things you do can show so much about the person you are. With regards. ш
PHOTOGRAPH BY YANA BELOKON 15
PHOTOGRAPH BY YANA BELOKON
CREATIVE WRITING 16
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PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS PAGE BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING 17
THE UNIVERSE MEETS HERE: A recollection of beauty
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
by malashree suvedi Souls; which are born of freedom and infinity, roam here. Theyâ€&#x;re wild, and fast. Etched with dirt, And bruised a lot, They smile their broken smiles. Their giggles are too articulate to be real, too divine to be false. Their movements are loud and precise. Souls; born to run, 17
CREATIVE WRITING 18
And move and turn, Lie naked and emancipated. “This is the point where the universe meets” she quivers, “everything is perfect.” You can taste the air, The universe meets here, Tears are pure. We aren‟t expected to follow rules here. All the universe asks of us is to exist. But, time seems to breathe in surety and breathe out existentialism. How does one find the surety that age and time swallow? Is there a way to stop time? Maybe there is, but honestly
‘But, time seems to breathe in surety and breathe out existentialism’
PHOTOGRAPH BY 18 MEGAN PHIPPS
CREATIVE WRITING 19
PHOTOGRAPH BY MEGAN PHIPPS
uttering „to exist‟ is the only answer to all of these musings. That‟s all we can do: exist. And swim in the nude. Let the water touch you in places you didn‟t even know existed, let it disarm you, and it let it engulf you. Let the sky above you become the reflection of your soul, and the water you in swim in the reflection of your depth. Say no words, but move your lips to the unheard song of the wind. I am not going after anything but my soul, Because Lo! And behold, 19
CREATIVE WRITING 20
It‟s drifting away. “But you are a soul” the universe sighs, “you are a soul, and you have a body. It isn‟t the other way around, how can your soul drift away? It‟s more likely that your body‟s being shed” That makes sense, in theory. But reality is a different story. However, it must be acknowledged that reality is an evil manmade construct designed to force societal norms upon wild souls. And the universe meets at this point, The muddy water anoints, As sighs of relief are heard. Pain could not help but flee and indifference soon died. After a while, all the wild, naked, free, divine souls had left was air. Air that tasted like truth and sounded like glory. Maybe, someday, you‟ll see the place too. Don‟t count on it though. As with all divine sightings; they are rare. Ш
20 PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING
a technicolour 23
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
BY JENNIFER AHNTHY PHAM
beginning
Prologue
”I need a coin,” you say, your voice suddenly carrying the authoritative undertone that it has always lacked. She raises an eyebrow at you. “It’s the least you 23
can give me,” you insist stubbornly, and she sighs, a soft, indulgent exhale, and manages to dig out a grimy coin from the pocket of her shorts. “Here goes,” you say, before flipping it in the
air, watching it fall to the ground with the sound of finality. This is where your new life ends, where your world begins to lose something resembling colour.
CREATIVE WRITING 24
24
You wake up.
ILLUSTRATION BY CASSANDRA WEE
CREATIVE WRITING 25
You wake up.
hope that you have
smiled a little sadly.
The ceiling above you – the walls surrounding you – the sheets covering you;
kept for far too long, but it is also an unshakable gleam in the midst of black and white, so you grasp it,
Clearing out her things after a year and a half, she kissed the corner of your mouth and whispered that she
cling to it, pray that it will take you someplace else.
was sorry. You remember her pink lips, the yellow of the nail polish she wore.
they are all in varying shades of grey. You close your eyes, expecting the insides of your eyelids to be
This is your life: you have a job which you hate, but pays off your student loan, your
crimson – that is what you remember. Instead, it is all black, an abyss.
rent, your mother’s (futile) medical bills. Finishing law school, you had thought,
It takes you a few seconds to remember,
this is it, this is where my life begins.
this is your life. Stepping outside your door, you look up at the sky, look at the grass feet,
beneath your the banners,
billboards and posters littering the edges of the roads, thinking
blue green red yellow purple, hoping that colour will bleed into the world instead of out. It is a desperate 25
Back then, when you walked down the street, there would be colours (bright ones, mostly blue and green with an aura of hope).
You still see her, sometimes, when she walks past your desk, but she blends in with the grey behind her now.
In a way, the lack of colour is gratifying; without it, you almost do not recognise her at all.
Y
ou
You had a girlfriend,
begin to question whether your life actually ever began, simultaneously wanting to know and
who you thought you would marry. Instead, she took a look at you one morning and
being afraid; because what would it say about you if it turned out that you have
CREATIVE WRITING 26
spent the best years of your life in only a pre-life stage? On the other hand, if this truly is life – if it has begun without you noticing – does this mean that there will be no more beginnings,
that stuck
you
are here
until your miserable life ends?
O
ne afternoon, while you are still busy turning this over in your head, you take a shortcut home from work and somehow end up toppling over a young woman in the middle
of the street. Standing up quickly, you flush, offering your hand to help her up, but she needs none of your help. She looks at you for a long time, eyes boring into yours –
she has really striking green
O
26
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING 27
eyes – before she offers you her hand, her name. She runs off before you can give yours – as if already knows it.
her she
You awake one morning with a flicker something resembling rebellion your chest.
of
in
Looking around your room, you realise the change: there is
green, green of the tree outside your window, green of the forgotten tea mug on your night stand, green of the t-shirt you realise you are wearing.
Y 27
ou meet her again. It’s a
grey, dreary evening.
to a battered couch
The kind with wet sidewalks and the smell of acid rain. She watches you walk past her, hands in the
and settling down next to you, asks you in a cryptic manner whether or not you can keep a secret. You
pockets of her shredded shorts, legs wet, one foot bare. You hunch your back,
flinch, replying “yes” without even thinking about it, and she kisses the corner of
not wanting to draw attention to yourself. She looks at you, appraising your every
your mouth much like another girl did, once upon a time, but instead of whispering
move, so you stop. With a flick of her chin, she draws you into an old, unused
sorry, she whispers,
apartment, obscure dust swirling around your feet like fog, asking you, “Are you ready to start anew?”
You tell her you don’t understand what she is offering, but she shakes her head at you with a mirthful turn of lips, pulls you by your tie
“I need you”. It turns out that she is on the wrong side of the law, and that she does need you, but not in the way you might have expected. She is a criminal, the kind with light feet and easy fingers, who hides in shadows and always succeeds because what does is
– it’s a drug, a talent turned addictive. not for money
CREATIVE WRITING 28
S S
he wants to steal
into the archives of the corporation you work for, and for a moment, shame makes you angry, embarrassment that she has been watching the whole firm, and has singled you out as the one most likely to turn traitor. She smoothes the anger from your face with a soft palm, giving you a hesitant kiss on the lips, and you think to
yourself,
like
why not throw
think about new beginnings; you ask
caution to the wind?
your
life.
You
for a coin. In the end, you never
When you open your eyes again, the dust at your feet is not dust at
regret the outcome, because to you, it does not matter if she is using you; everyone
all, but specks of colour, golden dots from the fireplace, red from a plush carpet,
has been using you for as long as you can remember, and she is the only one willing to
rich brown of the leather you are sitting on. It feels nothing
give you something in return.
28
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING 29
G
radually, the world begins to resemble both reality and a highbudget movie – different from the previous colourless sequence. Colours are too bright and people too perfect. She is perfect, you think, as she teaches you how to move silently, how to steal without
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
29
detection,
how
to
“No no,” she laughs,
become a different person in front of surveillance cameras.
her good mood contagious. “See, when light hits you at a certain angle, not only does it bring out
“It’s a trick of light,” she explains to you when you express doubt, because
you cannot escape who you are,
or hide certain features, but your face can become either paler, or darker – and
have
then when they look through the tapes after, they never consider that you
done so a long time ago.
might not have been this colour at all”.
or
you
would
CREATIVE WRITING 30
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
You shake your head stubbornly. “They won’t only look at the colour though, they’ll look at my hair, my build, everything –” “That’s where you’re wrong,” she says softly, her eyes compelling you to believe her:
“In this world, everything is about colour.”
30
Y
ou’re good at this. The success brings her
joy, becomes a magnet between the two of you, and after a few months of working together, she puts her hands around your face, looks at you euphorically, kisses you fervently after every single job welldone. You realise somewhere along the line that it is not
because addicted
you to
are the
adrenaline that you succeed. She does it for the thrill, always, only the thrill;
you
do
it
because without your help, she will get caught. “If anything wrong,” she though mischievous
goes says, the smile
CREATIVE WRITING 31
tugging
at
her
lips
betrays her statement with a statement of its
of course it won’t go wrong. “Run”. own:
You drag her forward by the belt loops of her jeans, so you can knot your hands in her hair. You replace answers with kisses, paying special attention to the ivory of her jaw, to the rose spreading on
world, you experience
room they have placed
that
you in is lifeless and cold without her presence, reminding you of your earlier self so much that, for
she, in all of her bold, stark colours is all you can see. The night before you are caught, you wake up to warm, yellow sunlight playing in the tresses of her hair. You think to yourself,
no more beginnings.
Y
ou cross your arms. The
a moment,
you fear that the past year has just been a desperate dream. You shout for her; they tell you that she is in another cell next door. One of the uniformed
her neck, to the sore blue jewels randomly scattered on her arms. When you open your eyes, you realise that the world has changed yet again. First from black and white to vibrant colours, now someone has painted the world in muted shades. In this third 31
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING 32
men slams his fist into
confesses alone, that
naiveté, your narrow-
the table, repeating what he has been telling you for the past hour. “If both of you remain silent,” he
person will be let off with a six-month sentence, while the other can get up to ten years,” he continues,
mindedness:
says, frustration giving his words a menacing edge, “the court has sufficient
his grin becoming increasingly feral. “But if both of you confess, you each get
evidence to sentence the both of you to five years of imprisonment”.
three years”.
You know what comes next; the thought of it makes you flinch. The man notices, smiles sardonically. “If either you or the lady next door
You know this strategy; you studied law, you studied the probabilities, the possibilities, and you wrote a paper on the ideal answer, titled it
because you never added colour to your equations. You have no idea what she is going to answer, “I need a coin,” you say, picturing a soft, indulgent exhale and the weight of a grimy coin in your hand. ш
“An Analysis of The Prisoner’s Dilemma”. It hits you now, your
32
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
CREATIVE WRITING
32
Resurgence PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE HONG
BY NELLY MATORINA
W hen I play artist, and I begin to imagine, I can never fully transfer the vague impression I glimpse in my mind 32
onto canvas, unless I have something to draw from. I need a hard copy – a photograph, something my mind can grasp the essence of, so that I can proceed to concentrate on every curve and try with the utmost of my ability to re-create the form I
see. Obviously, I am not a true artist. I cannot create from my mind directly onto canvas, as images don’t relocate so easily. Art isn’t about re-creation, but with re-creation I am a perfectionist. At some point in my life, I realized that, just like in novels, where
CREATIVE WRITING 33
people are characterized by their smallest actions, this difficulty of transferal describes the character that is me. Apart from showing that I have a mathematical mindset at times (I must admit, I like straight lines more than wonky ones), my attitude towards painting shows how, by looking at all the details, I don’t see all the details. I must always remember to forget to play artist. When I play lover, and I think of a perfect thing to say, I can never explain exactly what is on my mind. The thought circles my head a couple of times before it instantly becomes cliché to me, and I cannot recall any sense of innovation behind the idea itself. I need a constant reminder that it is natural, and not 33
composed – that it was created as a thought, and not a stain of someone else. By thinking of the perfect thing to say, I can say nothing. I must always remember, I must always remember to forget to play lover. As the waves boil over and the secrets of constant resurgence string together, its impossibility is all that much more declared. ш
‘Art isn’t about re-creation, but with re-creation I am a perfectionist’
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE HONG
CREATIVE WRITING 34
Words are like healing drugs
A
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
BY MALASHREE SUVEDI
star‟s death is very symbolic. It burns out all 34
of its own fuel and collapses on top of itself. That‟s how I feel sometimes: like all my expectations, dreams and hopes are going to collapse on top of my tiny body. The only way to stop myself from being completely crushed by the debris is to write. But
writing, for me, is not easy. The words in my head are tangled up very recklessly; they form a knot that hinders my thought process. But in the end, it is not my failure to untie the knot that prevents me from writing; it is the fear of
CREATIVE WRITING 35
mediocrity and failure that paralyses me.
imploding.
I would love to write for hours, but never can, as the frustration of not being able to represent the ineffable kicks in midway, leaving me in fear and anger. Writing is therefore a painful process. But the fact of the matter remains that it is liberating and beautiful. My words may not mean a lot, they may not always hold greater significance but they do keep me from
But sadly not everyone understands my love affair with words. Writing is not widely accepted as an art form. In fact, many a time I have encountered people who have told me “anyone can write, everybody wants to be a writer”, implying that writing requires no artistic talent or hard work. This statement is not only condescending towards my dream of
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
35
‘I’m not a fool, I do realise the risks that involve being a writer.’
PHOTOGRA
becoming a published author, but it also manages to belittle writing as a whole.
CREATIVE WRITING 36
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA
Now, I am in no way implying that I am, in fact, a writer. I do, however, wish that one day I can call myself that. For that to happen, I need a way to escape the stress and pressure of perfection. I remember simpler days when I wrote masterpieces. Not according to anyone else, but according to me. After every poem, I felt a sense of contempt and satisfaction take over my body. I miss that feeling. I am nostalgic. I want to 36
write masterpieces again, I want to feel inspired. But inspiration seems to hide away from me. All I ever feel is confusion. Perhaps it‟s a phase; perhaps this is all a fabrication of my mind. Whatever the case may be, I want beauty, not confusion, to flow in my veins. I know only the crème de la crème make it and maybe I am not good enough. This is a daunting fact which I am already aware of. But it is a burden I have to live
with, as giving up my dream would be disastrous to my wellbeing. As Somerset Maugham put it “We do not write because we want to, we write because we have to”. But I am also young and don‟t know where I truly belong. My path hasn‟t been illuminated for me. I am in the dark, without a torch, without a map. All I am given is a pen.
CREATIVE WRITING 37
Maybe I am a fool, are all existentialists fools? Donâ€&#x;t answer that, it was a rhetorical question. I can recall many a time in which I have quivered with fear and sarcastically mocked myself and all my naive dreams. I have asked myself to stop writing. But I am never actually going to quit; I always come back to it. I have to; it is the only
37
PHOTOGRAPH BY MEGAN PHIPPS
faithful friend I have ever had. Like a loyal dog it remains with me, like a lover it teases me. This star is not going to implode any time soon. I am cozy dwelling inside my mind; let me be with my foolish, unrealistic dreams of outshining all the other stars. Just like the sun. Ńˆ
But sadly not everyone understands my love affair with words.
38
CREATIVE WRITING
Forged Innovation
by Nelly Matorina Well, I guess in a way, that’s a new beginning. But what were you really looking for all this time? To improve yourself? The paper is crunchy, untouched, waiting there right in front of you. A glass of wine always angles from your hand, and the busted streetlight is the single source of luminosity shining onto the wooden balcony, as you sit in the cold and apply all that passion to the lined edges. You do it every time, you know you do, you write about honesty and pride and connection. And then when you sit down, thinking about your esteemed digressions. When you lie down horizontally on your bed and realize that the damn fear of being impolite and the fear of upsetting someone else got to you once again and made you envelope the truth. So, what do you do then? You wait a while, obviously. Probably a couple of months, until the mist outside feels new again, and the drizzle of the rain inspires you to find a place deep inside your soul to convey your deepest moral desires. I know they come in landmarks. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be feathered with all that emotional and philosophical significance of a moment standing out in time as enlightened. New years. Night skies. Birthdays. Days you feel the need to make special so that you can find another new beginning. But why is that beginning so necessary? Did you fail the first time around? Do you want a new shot, to start all over again, and maybe lack all of that unnecessary fear? Well darling, darling, that’s not the way to begin now is it. You’re setting yourself limits already! And from the start! But, it’s been too long, you think, I’m too caught up in it all, I can’t take it back! That’s when you feel the gruesome moment – the ridiculously beautiful streets around you. The sharp cup of coffee and the sour cough syrup. So find it, that single beaming buried touch of originality lying inside you and stop trying to rediscover the morals that you already know. ш 38
FEATURE 39
GET OUT OF MY DREAMS AND ONTO MY HEAD You cross off days on your calendar, impatiently watch hours tick by, and today is the day: Graduation in Denmark. BY CASSANDRA WEE & LYDIA DEICHMANN PHOTOGRAPH BY CASSANDRA WEE
A
s we sat on the equestrian statue, looking around at our fellow students at the end of what had been a very eventful truck ride, it suddenly dawned on us that this was the moment.. After trying
39
to delay the goodbyes for too long, as if they were never actually going to happen, we had to summon up the courage for it. This marked the official end of high school; our classmates were no longer our classmates - a harsh reality. Although there was
no doubt that he was among the most intoxicated of the group, he had grasped the concept much sooner than the rest of us milling around. He began to cry. Our efforts to comfort him were perhaps reflective of our own needs for closure.
FEATURE 40
Danish graduation is very different from the stereotypical American image of finishing high school that runs mainstream in media. For one thing, the white hat that we receive minutes after our very last exam is ours to keep, and is a large part of graduating from secondary education in Denmark. The inevitable tide of youth wearing their respective hats is a surefire way of foretelling the start of summer.
PHOTOGRAPH BY LYDIA DEICHMANN
40
“there was a growing wave of hatrecipients and subsequent blur of celebrations, rejoicing in the hangover of high school� Calendar-wise, not much time had passed since the very first International Baccalauretate graduates had received their hats on May 13th. From then on, there was a growing wave of hat-recipients and subsequent blur of celebrations, rejoicing in the hangover of high school.
D
enmark is not the only place in the world to have this tradition of student caps; this is commonplace in Scandinavian countries, each country with their own respective version of the hat, though the symbol that all hats share is unmistakeable.
FEATURE 41
TRANSLATION 1st honk: we drink 2nd honk: we chug 3rd honk: we flash!
The quintessentially Scandinavian graduation caps more or less gives us an excuse for romping around on the streets as well as being obnoxiously loud and drunkenly climbing on public objects.
T
ruck ride is one of the greatest traditions created for graduating students, as they are made to feel exceedingly important, and put on display, giving 41
PHOTOGRAPH BY YUKI TAKAYA
“they are made to feel exceedingly important, and put on display, giving a justification to the unabashed pride that we all feel” a justification to the unabashed pride that we all feel. It is a huge self-made spectacle, of squabbling students swaying in squashed trucks. However our rowdiness was not condemned by the accustomed public, who egged us on by honking and shouting congratulations whenever we passed.
Terrifying and exciting, it was pre-organized chaos, a glorious final burst of camaraderie as we made stopovers at our different class mates‟ houses. It was, and would undoubtedly remain, one of the best times of our lives; we were bonded by the simple fact that we had all finished high school and by our sole purpose of celebrating, we felt more unified than ever before.
FEATURE 42
n drunken splendour and with a blithe sweeping arm motion, a hat was cast off the truck, followed by a shrug of shoulders and the statement that it was “just a hat”. But is it really? Graduation merriment only sets in the moment we receive our hat. The hat is a catalyst to our festivities, the green starting light to beginning the summer.
I
It served as a means of expressing identity in the sense that we were first of all recognized as newlyminted students and most importantly, graduates of the International 42
Baccalaureate by the band of flags. They also encompass the personality of the owner: the markings and changes made to the hat reflect the interests of
“we felt more unified than ever before” the person wearing it. All students wear them with pride as they symbolise academic achievement. Some however, take it a step further and have the hat perched on their heads all summer, to show-off their accomplishment, and in a way, to buy more time to collect more symbolic
cuts on the inner rim of the it, which are endorsed by the list of rules inside on ways to attain different ones. These include the ever-popular skinnydipping with your hat on and the classic being drunk for 24 hours. Identity can manifest itself in the choices that we make, however conscious or otherwise those choices may seem at the time; joining that group for a history presentation; deciding to go to that one party; booking a place on the truck ride; making a quick-fire decision to go to the bonfire the night we got our hats, where many a section of newly-redundant notes were burnt.
FEATURE 43
W
e are defined by our choices. For so many of us to have chosen to take part in the celebrations of graduating the Danish way is something that makes the ending of high school just that much more poignant. Graduation would otherwise just be the end of one of many stages of academics, the ceasing of travelling to an institution of grids and letters rather than the flurry of traumainduced school nostalgia, strengthening of relationships and the
realisation that the world does indeed – despite, or maybe because of blearyeyed teachers droning it in at every class meeting – expand outwards from our feet. On those very same shared interests and feet, did we decisively climb off the ground onto the trucks and away from school on the morning of the truck ride. Choices led us through a string of houses and all the way to Kongens Nytorv, standing on the curb. Temporarily grounded, with leftover beer and wind-battered decorations in the backdrop, we set forth towards our last
milestone as a collective, the objective being to complete a final graduation tradition: To dance around the equestrian statue for the last time as a cooperative cluster of young adults that had shared two exciting years. As we slid off the statue and back to earth and reality, the last cumulative image we held of our graduating class was a bobbing mass of crispywhite hats already parting ways and thinning under the sky of graduation. ш
43 PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTINE ASTRID MULLER
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PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE HONG
TECHNOLOGY {Emergence of a QR code} {NFC Technology} {Why did Google really buy Motorola Mobility?} 44
TECHNOLOGY 45
Emergence of a QR-code PHOTOS AND TEXT BY NELLY MATORINA
If you were to live in South Korea, you would discover one of the most unique shopping methods to ever exist. It is all based on a new type of bar code called a QR code, which, when read (for example by a Bar Code Scanner application), gives information on a company, its address, CEO, telephone number and virtually any contact information you require. A QR code is located on the front of many company posters, in to order easily provide contact information. It‟s the equivalent of an electronic business card. In South Korea, the QR code has been applied to a
45
completely different type of purchase.
payments go smartphones.
through
Imagine a central station: there‟s commotion, queues, people talking on cell phones, so much noise. You have 10 minutes until your train is here on the way to work and all you can think about is dinner. You see a poster on the wall, advertising an online food shopping company. On it, there are photos of cucumbers, tomatoes, apple pie and many other types of food. It looks exactly like the display in a store. Next to each product is a QR code, which allows you to almost instantly read off the code and purchase your desired product, for it to be delivered when you get home. It‟s a virtual shopping cart, and all
Yet another retail innovation. Now we might be looking at a system of automated stores at the central station to pick your products up, and posters allowing you to instantly make your purchase in advance in a dozen other locations. A few problems seem to be the fact that not all products may always be available, or the milk you receive might expire in one day, or the oranges may not be the same quality as on the picture. A relatively small price to pay for such convenient technology. For more information, check out this video. ш
NFC Technology – the age of engineering
TECHNOLOGY
46
In simplest terms the NFC technology (Near Field Communication) is a system of signals (a different type to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi) where a mobile phone with a built-in chip and software recognizes a code and reacts to it. This typically happens at a 1-4 cm range – ie. very close access, which makes it safer to use than other wireless networks. Although NFC is only in its earliest stages of development, it‟s an extremely efficient way of completing mundane tasks – you can share a contact in an instant, by having the contact open on your phone and holding it up to another phone with a builtin chip. An application can
NFC chip reads off sensor
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be opened right away using this connection - you will soon be able to purchase coffee or other products through a range of sources, including simple inanimate stickers. Yes, a sticker. That‟s the best part. Passive targets (meaning no battery power required) are possible – it simply picks up power from the secondary device. This passive target can transmit URLs, text, contacts, videos or any other MIME data tag. That‟s what makes it more advanced than a QR-code, which is only able to hold text information. When you place an NFC phone against a sticker, everything happens automatically – down to the details such as opening the correct application.
There‟s also a lowfriction setup, which means no discovery or passwords. The idea that the payment system, which goes through credit card companies and then the bank, could be transferred without intermediates using this new technology has recently emerged. One of the most interesting things about NFC is that the tags can be rewritable or reprogrammable, leaving much up to the imagination on how they can be used. Companies like Google have begun creating phones with NFC compatibility. Watch out for the stickers, Google is on its way. ш
URL link given by tab
Download information
Short video about products
File downloaded to videos
Why Did Google Really 47 Buy Motorola Mobility? On August 15th, Google announced that it was buying Motorola Mobility for a huge sum of $12.5 billion, or $40 per share. This price was a 63% increase on Motorola‟s closing price the day before: what could have cost so much money? The world seems to credit this $12.5 billion purchase to Motorola‟s 17,500 patents (and 7,000 pending patents), which could avoid future patentinfringement lawsuits. Google already felt this headache when Microsoft sued Google, and Apple sued Google‟s partner HTC for two patent infringements. On the Google Blog, they fought hard to „explain‟ these lawsuits: “Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it. A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a “tax” for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. 47
They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation.” However, now many are questioning Google‟s purchase. After all, if the company had only wanted patents, it could have bought a smaller company for less money, such as Interdigital (a company owning its own fair share of patents and which many predicted Google would purchase). Google seems to be on more than one mission entirely – perhaps to get integrated into the hardware world. However, a mixture of motives is never surprising, and given the defensive tone of the blog post above, I imagine Google is frustrated with fighting the combined team of Apple and Microsoft – I gotta say, that can‟t be easy. But does Google want to make Android proprietary? According to Larry Page, CEO, on Google Blog: “This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Google as an open platform. Motorola will
TECHNOLOGY
remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android‟s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.” This means that they are keeping themselves compatible. Since the Android operating system is free and Google pays a huge sum for application development, this makes Android much more appealing. It is easy to see how they would provide sufficient threat to Apple and Microsoft, now that they are a full mobile manufacturing company. (Motorola Mobility is one of the two public companies which Motorola Inc. divided into following the split in January 2011) ш
PHOTOGRAPH BY NELLY MATORINA 48
FOUR PARTS OF PANGAEA: MALAYSIA, BULGARIA, DENMARK, CANADA/ THE BEST BENCHES TO HOBO AT THIS SUMMER/GUIDE BOOK TO HIDDEN BEACHES, HAMSTER WHEELS AND THE MOST CREATIVE DUVET COVERS IN EXISTENCE
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FOUR PARTS OF PANGAEA 49
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PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS PAGE BY AZUREEN RASHID
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PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROA
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PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS PAGE BY JENNIFER AHN THY PHAM
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PHOTOGRAPH BY NELLY MATORINA
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PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS PAGE BY NATASIA LEUNG
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PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS PAGE BY NATASIA LEUNG www.natasialeung.blogspot.com
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BEST BENCHES to hobo at this summer In which I describe two handfuls of excellent places to outlive your inner hobo while voyaging Europe. PHOTOS & TEXT BY ANNE ROLD
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AS THE SUMMER is pretty much over and done with, I find it difficult not to get instantly depressed. The trees are dying, and grey skies have become the increasingly more consistent backdrop of all my school-going, train-catching Copenhagen mornings. I try to look back upon my summer with the positive perspective of �Oh, how I endured many wistful adventures and morale-boosting encounters these past months, and oh, how I have grown from them!�. However, the summer I had was far from wistful and morale-boosting. Au contraire, I have probably never had such a to-the-point grimy, nasty and moraledefeating summer as this one. Good, though. Definitely the best so far. First I was at Roskilde Festival. I would make a deeper and more sincere account of the escapades sustained there, but due to heavy amounts of beer, gin and psychoactive drugs, most of my memories are somehow very
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blurry and feature ungodly, unmentionable reggae music. Also, I slept in a tent more or less completely drenched in downpour the entire week, so any accounts on ’benching’ would be unrelated. Second, I went to Canada. No, not the Canada you are thinking of – a friendly country filled with unnecessarily apologetic nyctophobiacs and maple syrup candy. I went to Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada: the land of the living skies. And although this
xxxxxxx
experience was very much the polar opposite to that of Roskilde Festival, there was also such an insufficient number of benches to crash on, that I will not share more from this endeavour at present time.
this article. I will not say that we lived as homeless bohemians (because that’s what ’hobo’ really means, right?) for 21 days straight, but rest assured that when we benched, we benched all the way.
Thirdly, my North American friend and I went on an Eastern and Central European Interrail for 21 days. This involved a severe amount of benching, and is therefore the sole basis of research for
Ladies and gentlemen; here are some delightful places to hobo at in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade, in no order of preference.
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I’m M
guessing that a lot of you don‟t really want to read about Lithuania; among the countries on the list of “Wondrous Places to Visit for Tourists”, Lithuania is hardly one of them. But if it so happens that by some random chance you do end up there, you will not have had the time to mentally prepare yourself and bring my guide. Which is why my advice is simple:
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carry one around with you at all times, so that if anything happens, you are prepared. Trust me, preparation is essential. There came a day when I woke up in a Lithuanian village (that I can only recall as „Druzamsauc‟ which is either non-existent or the product of my repeated misinterpretations). On that wonderful day, I woke up to the most imaginative sheets I
have ever seen, the classic imperishable Soviet wallpaper (which have survived until this day and will for evermore) and whitelace curtains. The memory of driving around in the dark after midnight came rushing back to me, as well as the memory of taking advice from a fully-booked guesthouse to seek accommodation at an „unconventional resting place‟ , meaning, of
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course, a man renting out individual rooms of a huge house. As sketchy as this sounds, it cost about 10 Euros per person and gives you a good feel of Lithuanian culture – a large house in the countryside taking in guests at all stages of the night. The outer part of the house, completely concealed by the dark, was one that just had to be photographed. If you
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are ever in Eastern Europe and see anything similar to the pictures below, stop for a minute - there‟s more where that came from. The village of „Druzamsauc‟ also offers Soviet diners, which feature pots of stewed meat, cabbage, potatoes and onions topped with sour cream. Yum. This village is somewhat of a getaway resort that no one knows about (except the Russians, of
course, they know about everything.) It‟s filled with cabins along the lake and a beach that can be rented, fishing rods, and a very lively young crowd that endorses singing through the streets at ungodly hours of the morning. We found a rather dangerous looking bridge, which rocked back and forth with every sway of the wind and I couldn‟t help but be reminded of Donkey precariously crossing the wooden one in
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Shrek. The bridge led us to the beach, and to these mystical recreation contraptions involving running around in a rubber ball like a hamster. I had to try it, of course, but it quickly exhausted my lung capacity! We then found a shooting range (well, for rubber bullets), where a woman (who was very unamused) set up a series of metal cans in a row and proceeded to return to her phone conversation. Upon buying the classic amber souvenirs, the day was complete. Just in time, we decided our adventures in „Druzamsauc‟ were done. We ventured off into the city of PALANGA, a seaside
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treasure carefully hidden by recurring families on vacation. We stocked up on Steak and Risotto (yes, capitalised), gaining energy as the grey sky passed over and brought sunny daylight. Walking towards the beach on the long walking street filled with wooden stalls dealing identical inventories, we ended up jumping into a tiny little boat on the dock, sailing
out into the great unknown by bouncing on waves for half an hour. I‟m pretty sure the driver got so bored that he started creating the waves himself, giving us tiny pulses of sea-sickness mixed with some rollercoaster freefall. Following this seaside adventure, we dove into the freezing summer water. Mmm, refreshing. Or a little uncomfortable, considering we didn‟t really have a towel and the sun decided to play hide and seek. ш
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A DAY IN PICTURES
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FEATURE 80
A DAY IN PICTURES
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WHAT I SEE IS WHAT YOU GET PHOTOSS AND TEXT BY SOFIA JUL
T
ake a look at the things around you. Look again. What makes something shock you and what does not? Every day you see a million things, but in fact, you don’t see them at all. The brain glimpses snippets of familiar objects or occurrences, like the colour of your lamp, and supplies you with the rest of the information so you don’t have to think about that lamp every time you see it; yet you still know it’s there. That’s why it can sometimes be such a big surprise when someone moves something and you weren’t expecting it. “A Day In Pictures” is about looking at your everyday life with new eyes, seeing what you didn’t see before, and maybe appreciating or understanding your world better because of what you learn. ш
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PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS GIEHM
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PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNE ROLD
MUSIC √
FESTIVAL REVIEW: NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL
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DAN RUTMAN: SWEETEST FRUIT EP
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JUKEBOX PLAYLISTS
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FESTIVAL REVIEWS: NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL, 11TH – 12TH OF JUNE 2011, ÅDALEN, ÅRHUS (DENMARK)
T
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ANNE ROLD his
small, two-day festival may seem like the greenest in the bunch, but in perspective, it has grown to more than twice its size since last year when it
started, this in reference to its number of visitors, the area covered, the budget spent on musicians, and its duration. The only complaint regarding the music that I heard during these two days was that it wasn’t
versatile enough. I understand this, as most of the music was somewhere in the indie rock/alternative genre, with the most extreme bands being Crystal Castles (CA) on the electro-rock end, and Tina Dickow (DK) in the softer, more folky corner. It’s hard to say what the best performance was, since most of what I saw was pure brilliance. However; a few concerts were outstanding in different ways. Crystal Castles was by far the
83 Performing: Mike Skinner
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craziest concert of the weekend, my hip bones now black and blue exhibits of this. From start till end, this Canadian dynamic synth trio, with Alice Glass as lead screamer and porn-esque performer, delivered a show that was both phenomenal and brutally banal at the same time. Standing front and center, I had a hard time deciphering the different tracks played, but it still
sounded amazingly unprohibited and every single song was danceworthy. Well, dancing would be an exaggerated word for what can be done with physical movement so restrained, and when one spends more time on the fence than actually against it due to the massive impact of the chaotic crowd. My friend who, to my knowledge, was right behind me through most of the concert, said he was inches from the ground several times, and feared for his life every time Alice decided to run to the crowds. I’ve never seen so many personal belongings and clothing items dissolved into the muddy ground as after that concert, in the space in front of the scene. As Mike Skinner, lead singer of The Streets, exclaimed several times during their performance: ”You, Danes… you are absolutely mental!”. On the opposite end of the spectrum rests another favorite concert
Performing: The Naked and Famous
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of mine, performed by White Lies, ending the festival Saturday night. NorthSide was their first time headlining a festival, and it was very noticeable that the artists were not at all used to such a large audience screaming their song lyrics back to them and dancing along to the rhythm of their drums. Standing in a crowd of people, surrounded by friends and familiar faces, I’ve never felt so alone in such an amazing way. I’ve never felt a band so close to my bones before. The performance became somewhat comical but very touching due to the band’s surprise of how much the Danish audience appreciated and loved the concert. I think a small relationship is evolving between White Lies and I, and I’m excited to see where time will take us. Other concerts that were memorable include that of The Naked and Famous (NZ), performing Sunday afternoon, with earcatching songs such as ”All of This”, and ”Young
NORTHSIDE HIGHLIGHTS
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Crystal Castles
The Streets on one of the two main stages. Mike Skinner can be seen in a salmon shirt, maximized on both large sidestage monitor screens.
Paper planes, all hanging at the entrance of the 'Camino' – a long walkway leading from the city of Århus to the festival area
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The Naked and the Famous
The crowds in front of A scene (one of the two main stages) There were around 16,000 visitors over the two days.
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Blood”. However, I didn’t realize the latter song was so popular; it has been part of a national campaign for Egekilde mineral water, so the Danish people have been falling in love with The Naked and Famous for a while now. Unfortunately, I have been in exam isolation, and haven’t actually watched Danish TV for the past three years, which means that I was looking more forward to songs like ”Girls Like You” and ”Birds”, and was actually a little disappointed to see the audience so unengaged to these songs, seemingly only because they didn’t know the lyrics. What a shame for them, but the New Zealand-based band delivered a strong set, despite their slightly shoegazy audience interaction. Also, I absolutely adore the Asian lead singer, but the male hipster kid who sings the deeper tones… Sorry, but live he is actually really annoying. It seems like he hasn’t realized that what his band plays is, in fact, not classic 86
rock, and he is, in fact, not part of Led Zeppelin. His attitude, geez. On a different note, Band of Horses were amazing live! I was excited but had absolutely no expectations to the American folk rock, definitely Southerninspired band. The lead singer was enthusiastic, and very, very talented.
Best songs were the slightly mainstream ”Is There A Ghost” and ”No One’s Gonna Love You”, which made the entire audience sweep into a silent hypnosis of solitary emptiness and thoughtfulness. It was
absolutely heart-wrenching and beautiful. A last spectacular performance was mastered by Jamie Woon. Unfortunately, it seemed that the audience had decided that their participation in the show depended on whether the music could be jumped to. Songs that went straight into people’s souls included ”Street” and ”Shoulda”. The music and Jamie himself were phenomenal, the audience and the performance as a whole was not, but it was still a very good show all the same. Other great concerts included Fallulah, who chilled the audience during the hottest hours of Saturday noon, VETO, Turboweekend, Editors, The Floor Is Made Of Lava, and the Vaccines. For more information about the festival, including videos, pictures and the full music program, or to order tickets for next year’s (three-day!) festival in June, go to www.northside.dk. ш
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DAN RU T MA N
ARTICLE BY ANNE ROLD
meet Dan, a fresh-looking young Israeli/Romanian musician eager to share his greatest passion with the world: his music. ”This is my first official self-released album, so it has been long awaited by some of my friends,” Dan says, adding cheekily: “…whom I like to call fans”. Dan is mostly 87
self-taught, though this is hard to tell from the four tracks on the new release.
pop, soft rock, and ”even a little folky feel”. Prior to hearing any of the songs on
He does, however, admit to having some pretty heavy influences, citing
Sweetest Fruit, I ask
James Blunt, Elton John, Michael Bublé, and Muse as inspirations. Dan is also into classical
He explains: "Chance is a song about a break-up. And I question whether or not it's a good thing,
music, but has chosen
whether
to have his first album consist of a mix of
chance, or just plainly a broken heart. But
him to describe it to me, to get a feel of what I should expect.
it's
[by]
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the lyrics point towards how I loved
it all around you, so I made friends with
nice and cooperative, we were all learning
this girl. And many people confuse Shine to be a love song. But really, I wrote it for
people, whom I hadn't really spoken to before, and we started playing
together, speaking to each other in the language of music”. Dan has done
the graduates of my new school, whom I honestly didn't know, I just performed the song at the
together a few times when we felt like it. You know, jamming and all. By the way, "jamming" was
different types of collaborative work over the last few weeks, notably performing with “a
graduation.”
probably the coolest word ever at the time. At first I was really nervous, because I
rising band in Latvia, called The Mike Hawk Band”, adding that he he will probably
was still not that good and I was afraid [that] my friends had certain expectations,
continue to apparently sporadically.
Dan feels that music has helped him connect with people with similar interests: “When you really get into it and music becomes a part of your life, you look for
but they were really
During
do
so,
our
conversation, Dan muses that his music is actually quite versatile, as I express different interpretations of his songs. Dan has experienced that his songs are interpreted differently by people, and sometimes very differently from what he was initially trying to express. This concept is very interesting to him.
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PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTIE SADAUSKA
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He believes that music is difficult to
tracks range from the very jazzy, upbeat
and concludes: “I do hope the listeners will
understand and elaborates: “I mean [that] music is a language in itself.
Benny the Fisherman,
enjoy the EP”. I can say with much certainty that I am sure they will.”
Even I, as a musician, don't fully understand it... What I'm saying is that the correct word is that they "feel" the
to
music. And in that way, understand it the way they like”. Which I guess is to say that
Chance,
it’s important to Dan that his music is listened to, whichever way the listener wishes. A noble yet comfortable request. The EP is definitely an interesting listen, with the very ambitious Shine laying down the tone as the first track. Although the heavy drum and slightly too many riffs overpower the track towards the end, the vocals remain outstanding and comparable to Jeff Buckley and Jamie Cullum. The other 90
to the sweet and hopeful (and my personal favourite due its
catchy-ness) Droplets, to the clean-cut, almost 80s-inspired, notexactly-a-love-song which
himself introduced.
Dan has
Dan is excited for his music to finally reach some sort of audience
A free download of Dan Rutman’s newly released EP is available on his website, and updates on tours and other releases can be found on his facebook page. ш
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Find me listening to something with the lights off PHOTOGRAPH BY MEGAN PHIPPS
JUKEBOX PLAYLISTS Nothing can be quite the indicator of a new turning point in your life as a fresh playlist to spruce up your iTunes this winter. Whether you are getting over a break-up (for better or for worse), moving to a different place, starting a new career path, or simply getting into the changing season, here is some inspiration to music that relates to how you’re feeling and what you’re going through (so your friends don’t have to).
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good songs for a bad break-up or: when all you need to get back on your feet is a good hearty cry PHOTOGRAPH BY BETITE SADAUSKA
And songs for the relationship that ends well, but will haunt you for quite a while 1. Fleetwood Mac: after. 2. 3. 4. 5. 92
”Goodbye Baby” Band of Horses: ”Noones Gonna Love You” Tegan And Sara: ”Call If Off” Sia: ”Breathe Me” Adele: ”Someone Like You”
1. Radiohead feat. Sparklehorse (Pink Floyd cover): ”Wish You Were Here”---2. Coldplay: ”Fix You” 3. Sóley: ”I’ll Drown” 4. Amy Winehouse: ”Love Is A Losing Game” (Rhodes version) 5. The National: ”Gospel” 6. Cat Power: ”Metal Heart” 7. Florence + the Machine: ”Heavy In Your Arms” 8. Wolf Gang: ”Pyramid Song” (Radiohead cover) 9. Mika: ”Pick Up Off The Floor”
6. The Notwist: ”Gone Gone Gone” 7. The Editors: ”No Sound But The Wind” 8. Agnes Obel: ”Brother Sparrow” 9. Stars: ”Your ExLover Is Dead” PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEKSANDRA DUBROVSKA
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music for moving to wuthering heights and big city lights or: songs for the wanderers and the homesick 1. LCD Soundsystem: ”New York, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down” 2. Justin Townes Earle: ”One More Night In Brooklyn” 3. The Chemical Brothers: ”Leave Home” 4. Joy With Colors: ”Hello Starters” 5. Bo Grumpus: ”Yesterday’s Streets” 6. Bloc Party: ”Where Is Home?” 7. Robin Pecknold feat. Ed Droste: ”I’m Losing Myself” 8. The Clash: ”Should I Stay or Should I Go” 9. Iron & Wine: ”Walking Far From Home”
PHOTOGRAPH BY MEGAN PHIPPS
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Tracks for factory girls and poor, sorry students
1. K’naan: ”15 Minutes Away” 2. Kings of Convenience: ”Mrs. Cold” 3. Asa: ”Dreamer Girl” 4. Oren Lavie: ”Her Morning Elegance 5. Arcade Fire: ”Culture War” 6. Eddie Vedder ”Society” 7. Dolly Parton: ”9 to or: something to distract you 5” from what you’re supposed 8. Supertroels: (Troels to be feeling Abrahamsen): ”Work Song” 9. How To Dress Well: ”Ready for the World”
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PHOTOGRAPH BY MEGAN PHIPPS
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Lyrics that enlighten the darkest of seasons or: how to survive winter depression
1. I Got You On Tape: ”Run From The Rain” 2. The Doors: ”Summer’s Almost Gone” 3. Devendra Banhart: ”Autumn’s Child” 4. Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles: ”Winter Song” 5. Donovan: ”Season of the Witch” 6. Ben Mason: ”Easy” 7. Telekinesis: ”You Turn Clear In The Sun” 8. Noah and the Whale: ”Waiting For My Chance To Come” 9. Paolo Nutini: ”Autumn”
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POETRY WISDOM FOUND ON A HILLTOP | AFRICA, MY HOME, MY HEART | WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MELT MUSIC
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POETRY
Find me with a scrap of paper in a blue cafe
wisdom found on a hilltop BY NELLY MATORINA
The river sounds like cornflakes and those stars, they don't feel like sunshine. Are you lost? You said you weren't, but you can't be trusted. My nails edge off the car seat My fist won't release My stomach aches. Have you any sugar? I don't like it, you know. It fills me up with things I don't understand. It won't work with my body. I swear! It's not you! It's the meadow PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS PAGE BY ELISAVETA SAMODUROVA it makes me uneasy.Ńˆ
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POETRY
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Africa, My Home, My Heart
BY LYDIA DEICHMANN
Africa, I still remember the day I left you And I said goodbye to the only home I’d ever known Surrounded by the dry dense bush, Which had been my playground for as long as I can remember. And which, when I hit my teenage years, gave me peace and a hideaway.
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Africa, the endless memories of you will forever be tattooed in my brain: The magnificent sunsets that you provided me with, The amazing nature that called out to me everyday no matter where I was No one could ever understand your beauty or power you bestow on people If they have not experienced it themselves. Yet, Africa, I cannot pretend, as with all good things, there comes bad too. I have seen pain being thrust upon your people’s lives And your peacefulness is painfully disrupted by your peoples’ cries for help As they are hurt by crime and poverty, scars that will be with them for life, Resulting in so many abandoning your beautiful continent. Beautiful Africa, nevertheless you will always be special to me I almost feel like I am cheating on you, being happy in another place After you have been my home for 12 years of my life My dream is to return to your everlasting magnificence one day. But for now, I want you to know that I will always carry you in my heart. ш
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What happens when you melt music BY NELLY MATORINA
I find myself on a different edge today.
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One not fully developed (has its fate been rejected?) I find light humour understanding the swirl of coffee spoons undone (was it ever?) like a drum, today. The feel of a story rid of history an overwhelming barrel to the throat (the mention scares me) is this but the gift of time to which I owe my gratitude (as clearly, forgiveness I am not owed.) Is it the fine defining line of everlasting circle to which I must give my blessing and if it is, then what
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POETRY
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what does this prove the uninviting shade of lower heart beating profusely (it’s just a name) hearing profusely (it’s just a song) seeing profusely (it’s not the edgeless face) Has time set out to be the only cure to misery but if I whisper nay, mutter nay, breathe the secret to all those stuck in shapeless way or form beneath
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POETRY
the uncrossed red-lit streets then shall I be the new master the rapid teacher of disaster the hollow knob where all great sorrows (guilty ones) insert their debt But this cheating (yes, repeating) of the golden rule have rise to the ceasing of the inner fight (only brought through loss of sight) and the loss of joy (only a few a day) and loss of love and willfulness and loss of lightness the indispensability of which has never hit you (unconsciously) before
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the loss of warmth and indepiction constriction of blood flowing overtop the dreary streets is this all a dream? a horrible detachable nightmare or is it yet a just and consequence aspect to emotional cause I favour the latter but merely because I shall never be clean & never be king & never be rid complete of sorrow (nor complete of happiness) & this is no scale nor eternal wait but things return to propagate: your healing that’s the word I’m looking for Thank you, thank you, far too kind Blessed be those that were never mine. ш
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REFLECTIVE WRITING THE BEGINNING TO AN END
NAMES AND PLACES
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MAKING EVERY DAY A NEW BEGINNING
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THE beginning to
an end
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. William Shakespeare - All the world's a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)
remember coming out of a 3u [12th grade] meeting one day. We had just been told to start thinking about what to do with our lives after completing IB [International Baccalaureate]. And I sat there, confused out of my mind. How was I ever going to decide what to do with the rest of my life? I was comfortable in the stage I was in, enjoying 3u to an extent, and just enjoying the present - I didn’t know how to make the decision of what to do in a year’s time.
REFLECTIVE WRITING
Lydia Deichmann
I
Luckily, I had had the dream of becoming a journalist since I was a little girl. However, there
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was still the question of where, so I sat down with my UCAS advisor Fiona (she arrived late as always), and we discussed different options before finally sending in my five university choices. Yet as
I talked to other people, who were taking gap years and had it all planned out, the seed of doubt grew and grew. I thought to myself: how can we ever be certain that the decisions we make are completely
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right? I envy those people who leave school, knowing exactly what they want and how they are going to get it. In my opinion, having to decide your future is one of the hardest choices you must ever make. Yet the horrible thing about life is that even when we think we have it planned out, and know what we want, the future remains unpredictable.
Although a new beginning awaits all of us graduates, leaving for university in my case or taking a gap year, it is also an ending to a chapter in our lives. I only realized, after attending farewell dinners and graduation parties, how much I am going to miss this chapter. The events brought back a lot of memories - memories that can never be replaced. It’s funny how
much a stage in your life can change you – and even when you’re changed, life still carries on, making the present the past, and the future the present. When a friend made a speech at our farewell boarding [school] dinner, she said that she had grown into a different person. When I look back at my past, there are more fond memories than one could ever imagine and I believe they make us who
‘The first time you learnt how to ride a bike, the first time you learnt how to swim, your first crush, the first time you snuck out and then got into trouble for it…’
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‘I envy those people who leave school knowing exactly what they want and how they going to get it.’ we are today. The first time you learnt how to ride a bike, the first time you learnt how to swim, your first crush, the first time you snuck out and then got into trouble for it, your first kiss or even your first love, all those giggles with your girlfriends, or your first big achievement, like getting a good mark in an
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exam. The memories are endless. I do think our memories and experiences, as well as the lessons learnt from them are the reason we are who we are. This is precisely why we should not regret them. Even so, I sat looking around at all my fellow students at the farewell dinner, staring at all the amazing people I have met. When the goodbye speeches were being made, I realized that this chapter is nevertheless coming to an end and it is necessary to embrace
that fact. Things must always end in order for there to be a new beginning. I know that this next chapter will be just as exciting and we will create new memories with new people, keeping the old memories with us in our hearts. There they will stay forever, or for some people, in boxes so that we can bring them out to look at once in a while. The fact that we don’t know what the next chapter might bring us only makes it more exciting. Ш
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REFLECTIVE WRITING
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F
rom the second you wake up, you are the master of your fate, like William Ernest Henley
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once so brilliantly put it. Each morning you get the chance of leaving behind all the screw-ups of yesterday and making this day
however you want it to be. Each day is a white canvas and it’s your responsibility to fill it with colour and life.
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So we’ve heard it all before: don’t live in the future, don’t live in the past: live in the present. People wait and worry about what’s around the next corner when they’re perfectly aware they can’t predict it anyway, and even if they could, what you imagine is rarely what actually takes place. Not living in the past could mean learning how to let go, learning to move on and realising it’s okay to make mistakes. It is with the guilt and regret of our past misjudgements and flaws that we can begin forgiving other people for theirs. We need to move on with our lives New beginnings can be huge things. Moving abroad, starting a new school year, changing schools, changing your style or changing your personality. It can be as simple as saying sorry, saying yes, saying no, deciding to be happy, deciding to try, or deciding to make a difference. Perhaps you are finally forgiving, finally forgetting or finally not regretting. The term is so indefinitely broad 110
‘The hardest part is deciding exactly what we want to become, and actually having the courage of pulling it off.’ that it’s extremely hard to define, but I think we can all agree: along with a new beginning comes a whole list of positive connotations.
in order to reach new heights and in order to start over.
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Because starting over is one of the most refreshing things we can do. How much baggage from our past do we bring with us into the new days of our lives? How many grudges do we hold? How many disappointments do we cling to, letting them colour our present? Imagine yourself diving in the sea. You’re swimming around, discovering new underwater miracles in 111
the form of fascinating fish and corals. You see them pass by, some quickly, others at the slowest pace possible and you encounter new colours, new patterns, darkness and then you see the light: everything here represents your life. But no matter how many beautiful things you see, feelings you experience; no matter how many sharks you meet, sharks that scare you, even sharks that
turn out not to be sharks at all, no matter how many experiences you obtain diving underwater, it’s given that human beings are not built to be able to stay underwater for more than a couple of minutes without having to swim up to the surface to catch their breath! Once this is done they can dive under to the beauty of the sea and rediscover its wonders.
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If we have the willpower, we can in actuality wake up one morning and be completely changed merely due to the
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power of our thoughts and intentions. Before we go to sleep, it is up to us to decide what we want to keep in our thoughts and what we
want to let go of. The hardest part is deciding exactly what we want to become, and actually having the courage to pull it off.
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Maybe you don’t need to change any part of yourself at all: your life is perfect. But don’t most of us have that one little part of ourselves that we think needs improvement? Perhaps you don’t always do your best and this is something you would like to change. Take control and responsibility and be the author of your own book, be the director of your own movie, write the script the way you want it to be, and if you make a 113
mistake, just rip out the page and get a blank piece of paper. You’re the author and the manuscript isn’t due until the day you die. You’ll be the one writing the last sentence. Be proactive. Embrace a new outlook. In order to grow, broaden our horizons etc. we need to change. And a change is like a new beginning. Also, forget everything about making mistakes. Mistakes don’t exist: only if you don’t learn
from them. And don’t we always? Surely sometimes it takes a few of them before we actually see the point, but still. You will always have gained knowledge in one sense or another. Take
‘We need to move on with our lives in order to reach new heights and in order to start over.’
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choosing your career for example. There is no wrong choice. Whatever choice you make, you will meet some amazing people, some less amazing people and gain experience. You might even have needed to make this decision in order to realise it was the ‘wrong’ one. Make your mark: reach for the stars, the moon, what the hell: reach for Pluto! Perform with passion and find comfort in your own talent and just express yourself. The bottom PHOTOGRAPH BY ILJA MOISEJEV
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line is, your life is your own responsibility. We don’t actually need a new year, a new school or a new outfit to get a new beginning. Surely these things might help us along the way, as they represent obvious new beginnings; but if we want all the positive effects they give us, we are able to do just fine without them. When you wake up tomorrow, have that mug of coffee that will soon have you bursting with energy, get off to
We don’t actually need a new year, a new school or a new outfit to get a new beginning. wherever you have to be, think of this as a new beginning. You are the master of your fate and the captain of your soul. ш
REFLECTIVE WRITING
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and
BY ANNE ROLD
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S
o I told her that between us, there was nothing but sky, and that the earth was more than a million years old and so it was possible that even she would be granted at least a good handful more. And that this was not a goodbye, or at least not a proper one, as there ought to be displacement and we would probably never move any further away from each other
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within ourselves. And this is how I left Dublin, to go back home, to sit in a plane with strangers from strange places and watch the world become miniscule beneath me. Now, the sky was between me and the tiny versions of landscapes I used to recognize, as opposed to being between my grandmother and I. A sick but stubborn, white-haired and cynical elderly woman, possessed with strength
and passion. Love no longer grows in her like a tumor, but bleeds from her body, a sea of red, of cold, white bones, shining in the Irish country side like a beam or a light house, calling home all the forgotten or misled souls. This is how I feel whenever I’m around her. She is something rare, something precious, but neither fragile nor sweet. A special sort of human that will probably never be created in these times and generations.
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‘She is something rare, something precious, but neither fragile nor sweet.’ I stare down intensely as the airplane sets off from the ground. I feel truly free in the air. About travelling, they say, it’s the journey and not the destination that make the trip worthwhile. At this point, there is no destination for me. Copenhagen Airport is another stepping stone, a step on the ladder that leads not into Heaven but further away from everything I ever learnt about the world and the people who inhabit it. I guess, in all honesty, it’s as much going somewhere as it is escaping something else. What that would be, is
still for me to figure out. I could be away all my life. ш
‘I could be away all my life.’
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REVIEWS [‘KAFKA ON THE SHORE’] [SPIKED MOVIE THEATRE DRINKS: AN INCEPTION REVIEW]
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REVIEWS
‘Kafka on the 118
Shore’ by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel After the success of ‘A Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’, Japan’s most prominently known writer Haruki Murakami published his novel ‘Kafka on the Shore’ in 2002. It was to be translated into English by Philip Gabriel, and released in 2005. ‘Kafka on the Shore’ quickly gained talk amongst critics, and is considered by some to be his Magnum Opus. Staying true to Haruki Murakami’s style, the novel is surrealistic and bizarre: talking to cats, uncharacteristic appearances by iconic figures, salmons and leeches raining are the norm in the extravagant novel. The novel follows two parallel plots: one of a 15 year old run-away boy, Kafka Tamura, and the other of a mentally handicapped old man, Nakata. The latter of the 118
A review by Malashree Suvedi two has an inexplicable ideation that eventually leads to his path intertwining with Kafka’s. ‘Kafka on the Shore’ is a complicated and extremely enigmatic novel with metaphysical implications and existentialism oozing out. The novel is a diversion from the author’s other works as the protagonist we meet is not a calm male in his mid 30s, but two bewildered men of very different ages. However, ‘Kafka on the Shore’ stays true to Murakami’s other works via its intertextuality and pop culture references. The novel, for all its ambiguity, is perhaps not meant to be completely understood One finds himself drawn into the plot because of its amazing story-telling and beautiful narration, but at the same time confused because of its vagueness and extreme surrealism. It also plays with motifs such as the ‘Oedipus myth’.
The novel is filled with riddles that can be interpreted in several ways; they play an important role in the whole plot, shaping it and the novel’s ending. “Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead, several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It's hard to explain, but that's the kind of novel I set out to write" says the author. The sheer weirdness and complexity of the novel is beautiful and magnificent. It is a long novel, and an absolute page turner. It enthrals, confuses and questions. ‘New York Times’ has rightfully placed it amongst the top ten books of 2005. I humbly rate it a 5 out of 5.
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That being said, surrealism might repulse some, and it is also best to begin with less complex works of his. For first time Murakami
readers, the novels ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’, ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’, and ‘Norwegian Wood’ are advised. The last of which
is not a surrealistic novel, but rather a realistic one. However, it still contains metaphysical leitmotifs. ш
Spiked movie theatre drinks: An Inception review By Jennifer Anhthy Pham Released: July 2010 Director: Christopher Nolan Genre: Action, sci-fi Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine
Nominations and Awards: 8 Academy Award nominations (including Best Motion Picture of the Year), 4 won. Inception, by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight), seems, at first glance, like just another archetype of Hollywood blockbuster productions: a high-budget audience gleaner filled with explosions, picturesque backdrops, an attractive cast and that little spark of romance.
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However, a full year and a half later, I am still having difficulty curbing the impulse to justify my devotion to Inception. I often meet critics who tell me, with a cynical twist to their lips, that it is hardly the smartest movie made, that the plot holes severely decrease the quality of the movie as a whole, that it relies too much on hype
and effects and too little on the actors’ debatable talent. It is true, certainly, that Inception is not the most complex movie ever made. In essence, it is actually quite simple, taking well-known elements from the film world: lucid dreaming, corporate espionage and people questioning reality is, after all, not completely unheard
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of. However, what these critics often fail to consider is that Inception needs ambiguity. What makes Inception such a masterpiece is not the plot or the concept of dream exploration. It is its ability to draw the audience in, to make them so entranced that they feel as if they are part of it, and, ultimately, continue to feel part of it even when the movie is over.
“Subconscious is motivated by emotion – not reason” – Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb. The pull of Inception comes down to the concept of layers, which are introduced to us already in the very first sequence of the movie. In the beginning, there are three vital ones: reality, the first dream layer, and then the second dream layer. These dream layers become the focal point of the film, as they enable a group of thieves to perform the 120
impossible heist: to plant an idea, rather than extract one. They become increasingly significant as the danger of too many layers is discovered (falling into limbo), then tragic as the audience learns about their consequence (losing grip of reality). In short, they continuously push us from one emotional state to another, mess with our subconscious, change our stances. In this way, it hardly matters if there are any plot holes – for as Cobb says halfway through the movie, subconscious is motivated by emotion – not reason. Inception, as a movie, has almost nothing to do with either reason or reality or all, because to fully understand the storyline comes down to our emotions rather than our conscious mind.
“It’s a love story at the heart of it” – Christopher Nolan about Inception. In the movie itself, there are always only two kinds of layers: the multiple dream layers and reality.
However, to the audience, the magic – what makes us continue to feel part of Inception – is that there are so many more. There are the three original dream layers. Then the layer which the team considers reality. There are the sublayers – the lives of each of the team members, easily visualised by their meticulous yet incomplete characterisations (in other words, easily projected by our subconscious) – and the layers of the past and those of the uncanny future. There is the layer that makes up the love story, which is both a layer in itself and a layer that stretches and mingles with all of the other layers: For although Inception is filled with guns and drugs, it is a love story at the heart of it, which, if possible, draws us in even deeper as our feelings – of love, longing, guilt, frustration – become one with the main character’s. There is the layer of the implied reality of the film that we never see, where Cobb’s wife was right, where she did actually wake up and found her husband lost in the
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world of the dream. Finally, there is the layer of our reality, the one where we begin to question reality because Inception feels more like a dream than a movie. Considering that the film addresses maybe, at most, five of these layers, this leaves us with what critics and die-hard Matrix fans often fail to observe:
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that Inception does not merely invite us to question reality, but also lets us populate it with our own doubts and ideas and projections. In the end, what we think of the movie has much to do with these projections, and so ultimately, what we think about the film has more to do with ourselves than the
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film itself.
“Are we going to feel a kick with this kind of sedation?” – Joseph GordonLevitt as Arthur. However, what I find to be the true appeal of Inception is this: Watching Inception is not watching as much as it is experiencing or living. For there could, for all we know, be yet another layer to the story, where our movie theatre drinks got spiked with mild sedative, making us all go to sleep for two hours, until we all woke up and walked out of the airport, I mean theatre, with a slightly dazed, jetlagged feeling. Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realise that something was actually strange. If we assume this to be true, it means that neither plot holes nor effects nor even acting slip-ups would have prevented us from being incepted. ш
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ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE ELISE HOLM PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE HONG
LARSEN