twenty600 issue #3

FREE

on the origin of labels canberra’s urban tribes

awkward art nymphomisnomer feminine sexuality and the media’s gaze

ISSUE THREE

jessica herrington on living uncomfortably

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editor’s thingo

Ah yes, winter, a time when we must hibernate until Mother Nature becomes less hostile. A time when we procrastinate, because it’s just too cold to do any work. A time when girls wander through Civic in belts disguised as mini-skirts, parading their lovely blue legs. A time when the latest issue of twenty600 features everything from awkward artists to urban tribes. And a time when I must give major props to Nick Ellis for saving my arse—if you ever need emergency graffiti for your front cover, or if all your photos get corrupted after shooting said cover, and your deadline is just around the corner, then Nick’s your man. Thanks, dude.

George Poulakis EDITOR

3IGNATURE #OLLECTION /54 ./7

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brought to you by these tools Elliot Cooper googles himself 16 years old; Detroit’s own champion kickboxing trainer; owner of Bendigo Bouquet; Director of SBA in STF Building; Dr. Lou Radio Show’s favourite movie; happiest when sleeping. I also: wrote letter (Oct. 1999) to The (London) Independent, ‘Blow to free speech’; worked for the Colorado State University School of the Arts (2006) in South American Peace Corps. And: T-shirts and caps with ‘I love Elliot Cooper’ are advertised for sale on Amazon. Buy one!

Editor George Poulakis Assistant Editor Claire Thompson Contributors Charlie Big, Petunia Brown, Elliot Cooper, Brooke Davis, Lachlan Ellis, Nick Ellis, Gerald Gaiman, Brent Hardman, Sarah Hart, Mark Russell, Claire Thompson and Stephanie Wang

Georgia Perry googles herself Who am I? Born in 1824, I’m home to 11,000 people (what can I say?

Popularity comes naturally to me). I’m known to be safe and secure, with a crime rate well below average. Glowing with pride and beauty, my main attractions are my Big Bang Boom festival and my peaches to beaches annual yard sale. I also own 18 hotels, which vary between 1 and 3 stars—classy stuff. An oasis for travelers, my rodeo is a must-see.

I am Perry, Georgia.

Photographers Camerajuice, Charlie Big, Nick Ellis, Jessica Mack and Georgia Perry Cover photo: Georgia Perry Model: Andrew McElligott Please send all contributions, cheques, compliments and ponies to george@twenty600.com.au Please send all incessant, whiny, pointless ranting to thisisnotarealemailaddress@twenty600.com.au

Charlie Big googles himself “Ummm, I feel it baby, don’t stop, please don’t stop, ummm, yeah, push baby, push, let it oooh lord, ummm, that’s it, a li, lil more to the ummm, that’s it, yeah, ahhh, yes, yea, yeah, push...”

This is seriously the first line of what appears to be the worst book ever written, in which Big Charlie is one of the characters. Okay, so Big Charlie is not quite Charlie Big, but what kind of name is that anyway?

Thanks a lot, Mum.

www.twenty600.com.au (02) 6139 1078 twenty600 owns the copyright in this publication. Reproduction of its contents in whole or in part without permission is strictly prohibited. twenty600 welcomes all unsolicited text, illustrations and photographs.

When you submit any content, you acknowledge that you have all necessary rights, including copyright, in the material that you are contributing. You agree that twenty600 may use the material, now and in the future, and that twenty600 retains the right to edit submitted work. While twenty600 endeavours to provide accurate and current content, no guarantee is given as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this magazine. Views and opinions expressed in twenty600 are not necessarily those of the publisher. twenty600 is published four times a year.

Jessica Mack googles herself Hailing from Memphis, Tennessee, JMack grew up learning the ways of the streets, and now reigns as one of the go to African-American beatmakers in the city. After receiving a Casio wk-1630 keyboard as a birthday gift, JMack started experimenting with beats. Due to the limitation of the board, not much progress was made. At age 19, JMack joined a group called SWAT, who sold CDs on the street. At age 21, JMack has now sold over 300 beats online alone and is well on the way to being a major name in the music industry!

ABN: 89 390 522 382

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contents

Comic 20

The adventures of APS Man

Awkward art 26

Jessica Herrington on living uncomfortably

On the origin of labels 32 Canberra’s urban tribes

Nymphomisnomer 38

The media’s male gaze on feminine sexuality

Little bits 44

Ever applied for a position in the APS?

Young (and) professional 47

Pro cyclist, Rory Sutherland

Film 52

Jam that in your Jindabyne

Environment 62

How big is your environmental footprint?

38

6 32

62 26 2

52

matter of opinion

Got something you wanna get off your chest about the mag?

Why not drop us an e-mail at editorial@twenty600.com.au?

Because you’re lazy, that’s why.

Letters have been edited for spelling, grammar and length.

A massive high-five to Brooke Davis for her article on Nova Scotia! Having grown up just down the road from Lunenburg, my brother and I were immensely impressed with the degree to which Brooke researched our home province—to quote my brother, “She’s covered everything!”

It was very thorough and, therefore, made me a bit homesick... but I suppose I’ll forgive all you twenty600 folks for now.

Thanks for reminding me of all the little facts that always slip my mind when people ask me about where I’ve come from, and thanks to all of your crew for a great new free mag.

Maggie

Congratulations on the second edition. I gave the mag to some women friends over the weekend and we all thought the hairy man’s butt on page 24 was in very bad taste. But still, we all had a laugh.

Geraldine

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What’s with that? Hahaha! I think you forgot one. What’s with Canberra drivers constantly running red lights?

Yes, we realise you’ve noticed the slight lag, but that doesn’t give you permission to hoon through when my light’s already turned green. I bet you’re the same wanker who tail-gates me all the time. Or the lazy bastard who refuses to indicate.

Or the idiot who talks on his phone while driving, because clearly his conversation is more important than the lives he’s endangering. I hate you.

Learn to drive, moron.

Paul

I totally love the magazine! It’s the greatest invention since those Mr Sketch scented markers. I never thought coloured markers could make me so hungry.

Jazz

Dear Mr Editor Man, It is with sheer disgust and horror that I write to you regarding the article

by Brooke Davis ‘Oot and aboot in Nova Scotia’. That a magazine, a free magazine no less, would have the audacity to publish such filth is beyond me. Canada? What were you thinking approving this dribble? I do not have children myself, but I can assure you that if I did, I would be horrified to think that they would be able to walk into any number of establishments, pick up a copy of your magazine and read such revolting dreck.

Canada should neither be approved of nor promoted, and those in the publishing industry, free or paid, have a moral imperative to keep this repugnant nation away from the eyes of the public.

Yours (ever so) sincerely, Charles P. Fuckbumdoodyface

I just finished doing my ecology assigment on habitats of bats in the Bega Region.

And, well, it came to me that there’s an evergrowing population of rats tails. I’m a bus catcher. I love them. Long iPod trips on the bus with a good magazine *cough twenty600*. But lately there’s been a big increase with these tossers and their rats tails. Call me strange, but I’d rather be wearing my tight pants than having a filthy tail hanging off the back of my head. They shout slang comments at people for no reason, just purely since, well, you know, that tail just makes ‘em oh so great.

Call me shallow, but there ain’t no fashion there.

It’s just my opinion, but rats tails are just damn right filthy. And worst of all, these girls fall for these dudes with these tails. Ah, it shits me to tears.

Thanks for listening. Your magazine is the sex.

Makes people take a new look on Canberra. Peace and love, Rob

Great job you’re doing on twenty600. This second issue made me laugh from the first article to the last—how’d you gather such a talented group of writers?! Anyway, a particular congratulation to Charlie Big. That man sure is sexy on paper.

Gotta love a man who can make you laugh, and has the same opinion of children and their parents ;) I’ll also be checking out the CDs he reviewed this issue.

Emily [ED: Charlie Big is decidedly not sexy. Just so you know.]

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to do list: winter 2008

PETER COOMBE AND THE JUICY JUICY GREEN GRASS BAND

A PRISONER’S DILEMMA How far do you trust your friends? This is the tagline for A Prisoner’s Dilemma. Answer: about 3 metres.* Here’s the gist. You and a friend are taken prisoner.

You’re separated and each offered the same deal: A reduction in sentence if you inform on your companion. Do you stay quiet, and hope they do the same, or betray your accomplice and walk away?

Personally, I’d call the Street Theatre on 6247 1223 to see if they could bail me out. If not, they could at least tell me more about this show that’s playing from June 17-21. See what I did there? *This is not an actual answer. But I am an actual idiot.

I’m not even kidding. ANU Bar, July 20.

Tickets from Landspeed on 6248 9220.

LONDON CIRCUIT Want to see Samson, John Oh, The Trivs, Terrorvision, Magic Hands, PhDJ and Wons Phreely? Well too bad, because you already missed them. But never fear, London Circuit will be back at PJ’s on August 14 with a whole new line-up of indie beats, disco treats and old-school tunes. Can’t wait till then to know who’s playing? Then email london.circuit@gmail.com to find out, or just rock up on the night.

AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE FESTIVAL

LENNY HENRY

Calling all nerds. Calling all nerds.

The Australian Science Festival is here again. So put August 16-24 in your diary, your PDA or your pocket calculator (huh?). For more info on events call 6207 5901 or be a computer-nerd and go to sciencefestival.com.au. It’s going to be heaps of fun, so don’t forget your Ventolin!

I remember one of Lenny Henry’s jokes from a standup routine I saw over 10 years ago. He said, “I lie in bed at night, and I look up at the stars and think, ‘Hey! My roof’s disappeared.’” I’m not quite sure if that works in print, but I still think it’s funny. Although I’m assuming he’s been working on new material since then. To find out, visit canberraticketing.com.au or call 6275 2700. It’s at the Canberra Theatre by the way, but you probably figured that out already. Oh, and it’s the Where Are You From? tour. And I should probably mention that it’s on July 11. Probably.

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Chronic Laminators Awareness Week? Cookie Loving Aqua Whales? Chubby Losers Against Walking?

Canberra Living Artists Week? August 22-31. Call 6257 4400 or visit artsaroundcanberra.com.au for info on all (or one) of these.

MY SISTER, MY BROTHER I’m yet to see a single performance by Quantum Leap that has been anything but exceptional. Join me at the Playhouse from July 30 - August 2 for their latest show. Go to canberraticketing.com.au or call 6275 2700 for more info.

NIDA ON TOUR

CLAW Dreaming of becoming the next Mel Gibson?

Or Cate Blanchett? Or Geoffrey Rush? Well look no further, because the school that brought you these and no other famous actors is coming to Daramalan College on July 14-18, offering a bunch of intensive acting, directing, and other courses. So what are you waiting for? Go to nida.edu.au and download an application form.

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE

photo by Silas

THE HERD

If I were to tell you that Hilton was robbed, Vanessa sounded like a 12-year-old, and Jack was a deserving winner, you’d know exactly what I was on about if you watched SYTYCD, yet another one of Channel Ten’s addictive reality hits. Or the title might’ve given it away. Catch the show’s top 10 at the AIS Arena on July 10. For tickets, go to premier.ticketek.com.au or call 13 28 49.

When it comes to Aussie hip-hop, The Herd is where it’s at. So join them in celebrating the decline of the ‘dickhead dictator, leader imitator’ as they embark on The King is Dead tour, playing tracks from their new album, Summerland. August 8 at the ANU Bar. For more info call 6125 3660.

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17 –21 June | 8pm

Got something coming up that you think we should know about? E-mail us at events@twenty600.com.au 15

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21

argh!

OMG i hate

the internet

by Petunia Brown

I hate the internet. I do.

Without the internet, uggos would have no way of finding one another and falling in uggo love. Without the internet, most of the western world would have nowhere to showcase their lack of talent, their hideous holiday photos, or their endless list of one-line synopses to sum up their current state of being: Jennifer is… eating candy and making cupcakes for the boys!

Todd is… like, so, like, hungover. Like.

Petunia is… wondering if a tree fell in the forest on facebook and destroyed the whole mainframe, would anybody care?

See, here’s the thing. I recognise that the internet is another of our ‘necessary’ evils—and when I say necessary, I mean in the yuppie, uptight, upper class sense that we now consider Blackberries, plasma TVs, four-wheel drives and Angelina Jolie to be necessary.

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I also recognise that as a global community, we’ve all been starved for a way to mass distribute videos of ourselves having sex with random bogans. We’ve all been secretly wishing we could find a video featuring two girls and one cup, and watch it freely without our partners being able to see what we’ve rented from the video store.

But let’s be fair. If I were to be honest, I’d admit that I’m resistant to any sort of change, including new technology. I mean, there are many good things about the internet. You can check your email. You can stay in touch with distant friends. You can look up adorable pictures of cats and laugh in a jolly fashion at the scrapes they find themselves in. You can check your bank balance and be absolutely, 100 per cent sure that you have no money. You

can buy an assortment of useless shit from the internet, have your identity stolen via your credit card info, be Single White Femaled by an online stalker and wind up dead in a basement with a stiletto embedded in your forehead.

Oh yeah. The internet is sooo good.

The other great thing about the internet is that it now validates each and every one of us in our most deranged personality tics. For example, you can now diagnose your symptoms for a variety of random diseases just by doing a Google search. No matter that you’re not a doctor—the internet is encouraging even the most closeted hypochondriac to come on out and decide that they have the clap. Oh my god, is that a lesion? Oh my god, am I jaundiced?

Do I have Hep C? I have a stomach-ache, am I dying of cancer? Um… nope, you’re just the 23

same twat you always were.

You may think I’m being ridiculous, or a bitch. Well, whatever. I recently spent three hours trying to connect my new wireless internet at home, but was derailed early in the piece when the instruction manual told me to “select an encryption type”. What? I mean, I’m sorry.

I realise that kids these days are coming out of the womb with a laptop in hand, but for a layperson like me, it’s all a complete mystery.

I don’t wish to donate three hours of my time connecting to a service that will only rape and pillage my bank account and my soul. I don’t want to be sent nerve-grating emails from casual acquaintances that say, “Oh my god, click this link. I totally swear, this is soooooo funny. You will LOL.” It’s not. I won’t. I don’t LOL, I don’t ROFL, I don’t LMAO. I just don’t.

oh, shut up!

the internet DOES NOT suck balls

by Charlie Big

photo by

Like it or not, the internet is practically indispensable these days.

Whether we need it to send emails or simply to search for porn at 3am, many of us reluctantly rely on its webby goodness.

My vice is online dating. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve become quite the e-whore. After all, where else can I meet a potential partner?

Not in the real world, that’s for sure. And nowadays, everybody’s hooking up online. It seems to be the Gen Y thing to do. Unfortunately for me though, as a gay man, online dating has an extra layer of fucked-upness to it, because stereotypically, most gay men are quite the promiscuous type. And the internet only perpetuates the opportunity for a quickie.

Here’s how it works. You enter a bunch of personal details on a website, but instead of A/S/L we’re now being asked P/O/D: Position; Out; Dick size. I’m sorry, but what the shit? How about a little mystery?

I don’t need to see photos of you that are all, Hey, I have a cock! Look at my cock! Did I mention I have a cock? COCK!!!

Yet I keep going online, because sometimes, against all gay odds, there’s the slightest chance that you might somehow wind up in a relationship that lasts a few whole weeks. Which brings me to my story—you didn’t think there was no point to my rant, did you?

I recently had the misfortune of entering a relationship with a guy I met online. Things were going relatively well until…

Cameraju

ice

24

Ok, wait, let me backtrack for a second (or maybe two paragraphs). Recently, despite much protest, I finally gave in and joined facebook.

For the first week I was all, This is totally rad! I was talking to people I hadn’t talked to in ages.

I was feeling creepily voyeuristic by checking out people’s conversations and photos (including some of me that I never knew existed!). I was being judged on my screwability. Basically, I was in danger of becoming one of those tools you meet who are all, “Hey, are you on facebook?” and, “I’ll facebook you tonight, ‘kay?” Facebook is not a verb, ‘kay?

Fortunately, the novelty of this lame popularity contest soon wore off; I remembered that I stopped talking to these long-lost ‘friends’ of mine because we had nothing in common. I stopped caring about who had the same taste in music as I did. And I stopped wasting time with groups like ‘If you clone urself and have sex with urself is it incest or masturbation?’ I just stopped caring. That is,

until things got personal.

You see, Online Guy decided to do the lamest thing imaginable: he broke up with me on facebook. Firstly, who does that? Who doesn’t give their partner the opportunity to lose their shit in public? Secondly, grow some balls. That’s even more gutless than when you’re in primary school and you ask your best friend to tell a girl that you like her. Needless to say, the primary fundamentals of relationships are evolving (see what I did there?).

It’s one thing for people to hook up online, but apparently it’s now acceptable to break up with someone online, which is just another excuse to remove ourselves from any actual human contact.

Time to digress some more. Just because the relationship started online, doesn’t mean it has to end that way. If you’re going to dump someone, show them some respect and do it in person. But if you absolutely must be a lame-arse lame-wad like Online Guy and dump someone online, at least use a web cam, because you can 25

still hear and see the person, but have the ability to disconnect if things get all Fatal Attraction.

Otherwise, email this person who clearly must suck so bad that you can’t dignify your relationship with a proper break-up. But remember, if they don’t get your message immediately, this could result in an awkward encounter. And that brings us to facebook. Don’t do it. This is by far the least personal option of all—carrier pigeon and Morse code notwithstanding. What makes my dumping experience even worse is that I didn’t even get a personalised message in my inbox saying “u r dumped”. No, instead, Online Guy simply updated his facebook status to single, and assumed I’d eventually get the message. What’s funny is that I was actually trying to break up with him for weeks, but couldn’t think of a way to do it.

If only he had a MySpace page.

My point is this: online dating may be poo, but I just met the sweetest guy online, which is why I think the internets are awesome.

Awkward Art Jessica Herrington, the winner of the 2008 National Youth Self Portrait Prize, talks about the horror of being outside the photo’s frame.

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The image is intriguing. A woman—a girl, really—is trapped trying to get in to (or out of?) a jumper. One hand reaches through the neck-hole; the other is trapped in the folds of material. The girl’s face is hidden under the jumper’s brightly coloured stripes. Amplifying the discomfort, the scale of the figure is larger than life.

The photograph, Awkward Self, is the winning entry of the National Portrait Gallery’s inaugural National Youth Self Portrait Prize, announced in March of this year. For the photographer, Jessica Herrington, the win was a mixed blessing.

The public exposure of her work was phenomenal and the $10,000 prize a huge bonus for a struggling student fearing she’d have to drop out of her Honours year. The experience of being thrust into the media spotlight, however, was almost too much for a young woman whose art revolves around the idea of social discomfort. “Oh my God, that was so scary,” she says of the endless parade of interviews and photographs she was subjected to. “I’ve always felt like a really awkward person. I feel like awkwardness is something that everyone feels, but [is] so keen to ignore.”

The National Youth Self Portrait Prize invites young photographers to create a self-portrait in drawing, print, painting, traditional or digital still photography.

This year’s panel of judges, comprised of National Portrait Gallery director, Andrew Sayers; senior educator, Amanda Pollen; and Chair of the Australian National University Foundation for the Arts, Professor David Williams, selected Awkward Self as the winner from several hundred entries. “The thing that the judges were looking for was really a creative engagement with self-portraiture.

And so we were wanting a balance between the technical skills and the conceptual understanding of what they were making,” says Amanda.

At the prize giving ceremony, Jessica ironically found herself in an uncomfortable situation when, to her surprise, her name was called out as the

27

winner. “What I tend to do is go over to the opposite side of the room, [away from my] work,” says Jessica, who intentionally hid her face in her self-portrait to preserve a sense of anonymity. “And so [my portrait] had a little thing that said ‘winner’ on it, but I didn’t go near it. So I didn’t know until they actually announced it.”

The attention, though difficult, has certainly given Jessica a public forum in which to talk about her work—something she seems more than happy to do. Her pieces look at dichotomy, she says—exploring the clash of two different ideas and why the distinctions between something and nothing aren’t always as clear-cut as they should be. “I was interested in the artist Yves Klein. He’s a French modernist who talked about this concept called ‘the void’, which is the idea of a space that has nothing in it, but it’s surrounded by the world, and when that ‘nothing’ becomes ‘something’,” she says. “My practice is also about fitting myself, and the objects that I make, into the world. It’s about the awkwardness of existing, and the awkward struggle between myself and the objects that I make.

I think sometimes my work can mean nothing, but then it can mean something important at the same time. I’ve taken [the jumper used in Awkward Self] from an op-shop. It was $3. It was scrap. It was nothing.

And I’ve turned it into an idea.”

As well as working with photography, Jessica also uses many other media such as etching, painting and sculpture. “For a long time I’ve tried to pull myself down to using one medium and having a really coherent body of work,” she says. “But my brain doesn’t work that way. I’m all over the place all of the time. I’m working on all different projects.” Instead of holding back, her bits-and-pieces approach seems to enhance her creative 28

energy. “My practice is very multi faceted. I have a short attention span and I work best when I can jump from project to project and bring about ideas in different forms.” This practice extends to the hanging of her works; Jessica says that the combination of work she puts together is an essential part of the viewing experience. “Some works hit different notes, and you’ve got to put works together on a wall that hit the same sort of resonance with each other. You can’t put a really quiet piece next to a really loud one,” she says.

Quiet or loud, a feeling of discomfort prevails. She applies awkward techniques to many of her media—rather than just painting a picture, for example, she’ll use paint straight from the tube, positioning the canvas as a support for paint rather than the paint as a vehicle to create an image of something else.

“If you look at the paintings, there’s a lot of white space on the canvas. It’s more about sculpting with the paint.” A recent Melbourne exhibition at the Brunswick Street Gallery illustrated some of her ideas: “That was more about using the paint as it is as a raw material in an awkward sort of way rather than trying to

picture an awkward moment,” she says.

One can easily imagine, then, that this selfconscious artist is in her self-conscious element in terms of the art she’s currently creating. On graduating, she says, she’ll be looking for a residency in an attempt to continue following the creative path—once uncomfortably private, now uncomfortably public—she’s found herself on.

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relationships

e h t f o n r u t e R e d a g i r b t a f n

by Petunia Brow

ica

ss y Je

ck

Ma

So this whole fat thing is out of control.

I’m not talking about the obesity epidemic the Western world is currently facing. No, I’m talking about those people we all know who have turned into an army of fatophobic freaks. I don’t know what it is—the Hollywood physique, the size zero jeans phenomenon, or just general insanity—but either way I can’t count the number of conversations I’ve had with beautiful, healthy girlfriends of mine who are unnaturally obsessed with the size of their arses. Or the circumference of their thighs. Or their imaginary cellulite. Or the fact that there are more calories in one single blah blah than there are in 800 other blah blahs. Well, word up, ladies: you all need to shut up. You are boring. That 500 grams you think you’ve gained in the last 24 hours is of no interest to anybody except you. If you want to look like Calista Flockhart, then no, you can’t eat cake, burgers, hot dogs and giant tubs of lard and spend your life lying on your couch.

The other day I had a woman come in to the café where I work. She wanted to know about the muffins. Were they fat free? Were they sugar free? Were they whole wheat? Were they all natural? All natural? What does that even mean? In my head, the definition of ‘natural’ is something that occurs in its natural state. An apple, for example. It grows on a tree.

You pick it from said tree. You eat it. You do not add shit to it, douse it in

to b

pho

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  grease or shower it in sugar. So if you’re asking me if the muffin is like an apple, then no, it is not. I did not pick it fresh from a muffin tree this morning. Nor did I grind whole-grain spelt flour with a mortar and pestle and fill it with cold pressed olive oils and raw fruits from the Garden of Eden. I actually scooped it out of a bucket of overly processed, ready-made muffin gloop that was delivered to my café from some factory in the boonies, and then I ladled it into a baking tin sprayed liberally with homogenised vegetable fats in the form of cooking spray. And if this is surprising to you, then please reflect for a moment on your own definition of ‘natural’ and then tell me how you expect a caramel swirl cupcake to occur naturally.

Of course, if you’re finding the whole thing too difficult to get your head around, don’t worry— someone else will do it for you. In North America, Starbucks is converting to using two per cent partially skimmed milk as their default milk, in place of whole milk (which comes with a fat percentage of around 3.5 per cent). According to the company, they’re being more accountable to their clients by choosing a healthier option FOR them, instead of trusting people to make sensible choices themselves.

Now tell me, do you really think a cup of full fat milk is the reason behind those one or two kilos you gained lately? Do you? Or do you think, just maybe, you’re actually banging on about a weight problem you don’t actually have, to somebody who doesn’t

actually care? I’m sorry, but just because you have some sort of mental disorder regarding your body image does not mean that I should be subjected to it.

I want my full fat milk. I do not need somebody else deciding what I do or don’t put into my body. I do not need to be assisted by you or by corporate America in maintaining my size whatever backside, or keeping all those arteries and whatever the hell else around my heart clear. Why not? Because I’m a freakin’ adult, that’s why. I can decide those things for myself.

And around about the time my own mum stopped having input on my nutritional decisions was the time everyone else should have stopped putting in their two cents’ worth too.

So please, please just shut up. Just because I am female does not mean I have a completely whacked relationship with food, nor does it mean I wish to be sucked into your bizarro world where there is such thing as fat free chocolate torte filled with low cal ganache and topped with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Whipped Cream. I like food and I like to eat. I do not like to eat low-fat, psuedo versions of things like dessert. I do not like aspartame and other cancers in my coffee in place of sugar, and I am not interested in developing body dysmorphia so that you and I have something in common. I don’t care about your unrealistic hopes regarding the calorie count of a muffin. I don’t care about calorie counts at all. I. Just.

Don’t. Care.

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 

 

  

       



on the origin of labels

by Claire Thompson photos by Georgia Perry

In the beginning, our plan for this article was to write about the ‘evolution of the species’—to look at a number of Canberra subcultures, or ‘urban tribes’, and see how they’ve changed over the years. But if you read on, you’ll see that there was an entirely different story waiting to be told.

In selecting our four interview subjects, we pluck an emo from Garema, a skater from the Belconnen skate park, a public servant from a particularly dull-sounding department, and a geek involved in the gaming scene.

On paper, we have the four perfect candidates. In person, however, the results are… surprising.

Our emo, 16-year-old Ben Lustri, announces at the outset that he has nothing to do with the emo culture and doesn’t appreciate the tag. “Personally I really hate that label,” he says. Brenden Wood, a keen skater who loves being part of the Canberra skate scene, doesn’t like the connotations that go with the ‘skater ’ tag. “I don’t really think there’s such thing as a generic skateboarder,” he says. “I think skateboarding bridges the gap between a lot of different cultures.” Our ‘geek’, Paul O’Connor, says he didn’t even realise he was a geek until a friend suggest he be interviewed for this article. And Jurgen Parsens, a public servant with the Department of Finance and Deregulation, says that the stigma associated with being a ‘pube’ is totally inaccurate. “I think the stereotype for a finance worker is that they’d be primarily very conservative, boring, and not have a life outside of work. But I find that to be absolutely incorrect, actually. Most people I’m working with have very active social lives and some of them are really creative.”

So then—what’s the story with our urban tribes?

Working in the public service not only offers you a cushy job, decent salary and regular hours—for Jurgen Parsons, his work with the department of Finance and Deregulation means he’s branded as a public servant. In Canberra, derided for being a city full of bureaucrats and dull office workers, the tag is less than complimentary. “I wouldn’t say I would define myself as being a public servant, absolutely not. There’s much more to me than being a public servant. I have a passion for music. I enjoy being around creative people and being involved in the creative process,” Jurgen says. “I’ve always been a critic of people who put labels onto other people. I’ve always been against that way of thinking. I don’t like labels. I don’t like to pigeonhole people.”

Jurgen’s passion for music “definitely” predates his work in the public service. He has played guitar for over 15 years, and quickly identifies music as his driving passion.

The work he does as a nine-to-fiver, he says, actually gives him the freedom to enjoy other things. “I definitely think that working in the public service enables people to have a strong work/life balance. So they’re able to pursue activities outside of work, like music for instance, or sporting activities.”

While Jurgen may not like the label he’s been given, does he like the work?

“I do, yeah. It’s a job that requires me to work with a variety of different people.

It’s not always the same. I do have an opportunity to do a variety of different things.

Before working in the public service I was a teacher, and I was actually more bored being a teacher than a public servant, which is quite surprising.”

But surely working nine to five, taking home a stable pay check, and playing music in your spare time isn’t very rock and roll? “There are moments where I can feel frustrated because I’m not able express myself in an artistic way because I’m at work.

But I’ve found that to be the case with most jobs I’ve done. I very much believe that work is work and hobbies are hobbies.”

Paul O’Connor is perhaps as close as we get in finding someone who identifies with a particular urban culture. Paul falls into the geek category, he says, because of his long held interests in gaming and anime, but wouldn’t have labelled himself as such.

In fact, he says, he hadn’t really thought about it much. “My friend called me and said that you were looking for [a geek] and I said, ‘Oh…I guess I am a geek.’”

Alright then. So what does the word mean? “I guess from my point of view [a geek] would be someone who has an extensive knowledge of things, or is heavily

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involved in things, which aren’t considered to be normal—things that are probably quite unpopular. Mainly things like technology I guess, [and] pop culture as well,” Paul says.

Paul believes the geek culture has changed since he was at school—geeks are no longer solely followers of sci-fi, no longer just hardcore gamers. A geek could be into pretty much anything.

“Going back, like when I was a kid, it was people who were into computers and technology and science fiction. But that’s a fairly narrow scope,” Paul says. “I’m heavily into gaming and anime, and that’s a different sort of geek to the one who likes movies and trivia.”

The rise of the internet also means that computers are no longer solely the domain of geeks. “Nowadays [most] people are pretty computer literate, because most people use [computers] for their jobs and what have you. And the internet used to be a domain for geeks but now everybody’s on the internet, you know, shopping and socialising and everything else.”

So if Paul wouldn’t have labelled himself as a geek, does that automatically make the label derogatory? “I think the ‘geek’ label isn’t as horrible as it might’ve once been,” he concedes. “People might pick on you for being intelligent, and I think that’s one of the stereotypes of being a geek, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

And while those of us outside the culture might lump geeks together under one banner, within it are a number of groups and factions who don’t identity with one another. “They all sort of coexist, but I’m not sure how well they’d get along, because we all tend to have fairly specialised knowledge about a particular thing,” Paul says.

“Personally I find it hard to talk about other things. People are kinda scared about meeting up with geeks at parties and stuff, and getting trapped in a corner with them while they go on and on and on in great detail about whatever it is that they’re particularly passionate about. I think there’s a sort of elitism that comes from being a geek and what it is that you particularly love or are a fan of, and if other people don’t share your view, regardless of whether they’re a geek or not, you tend to dismiss them.”

At any rate, Paul doesn’t seem to feel particularly affected by his label, nor does he feel any pressure to live up to it or refute it. “It’s not really an insult or a bad thing. I mean, I don’t really think of myself as being a geek, per se. It’s just who I am,” he says.

“I’m proud of myself for being a little bit different, and not being into the same things that everybody else is into.”

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Brenden Wood is a self-described skateboarder. He loves to skate, he loves the skate scene in Canberra, he defines himself as a skater, and yet, he hates the label.

“I don’t really think there’s such thing as a generic skateboarder. I know lots of people that skate together but they’re labelled and stereotyped as something completely different,” he says.

After talking with Brenden for a while, it becomes clear that while he identifies with being a skater, he doesn’t like the connotations that seem to go along with the tag. “[Skateboarding’s] something you don’t understand unless you’re a part of it, unless you pick up a board and do it yourself,” he says. “The biggest [stereotype] would be that we’re all troublemakers.” He pauses for a second, and then laughs and says, “I can’t really say that we’re not. I think a lot of people just assume that we’re bad people because we skateboard. They just make that judgement straightaway.”

Like all labels, the term ‘skater’ seems to suggest that all skateboarders are similar people with similar interests. Brenden disagrees. It’s skating that brings the group together, but outside of skateboarding itself, their interests are incredibly varied.

“When you think about it, I’m a bit of a computer enthusiast. My friends call me a geek sometimes. I’ve got friends that dress a certain way, so people might call them an emo,” he says. “I know so many different skateboarders with so many different tastes in clothing and music; there’s no way you can define a generic skateboarder.

We’re just a big motley crew.”

We hunt down Ben Lustri after seeing him in Garema place. He looks like a typical emo—the black hair, the fringe, the tight jeans—and so we hang creepily outside the comic book shop, waiting for him to re-emerge. As soon as the interview begins, Ben tells us straight out that he doesn’t like the emo label and doesn’t identify with the culture. He reassures us that we’re not the only people to make the mistake— apparently many before us have put him in the emo box. Why? “Because I wear skinny jeans, I have a fringe and I wear tight clothes,” he says. “People [use the term] now to [describe some physical] style, with skinny jeans and hair over one eye. It’s not even right.”

It’s an interesting contrast. The other people we’ve been talking to are all stereotyped because of what they do. Ben, however, is stereotyped because of how he looks. He is being forced to wear a label for a cultural movement he doesn’t identify with—and also to put up with abuse from people who judge his appearance.

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“I have had it in the past. People have come up to me and said, ‘Go away you stupid emo, go cut your wrists,’ and that type of stuff,” he says.

I leave the interview with the realisation that I’m not much better—after all, I was more than happy to stick Ben in a box to suit my own purposes. It also occurs to me that if Ben claims not to be part of the emo culture, then I don’t really have much idea of what the term actually means. I decide to do a bit of research.

Emo, from what I read, is an abbreviation of the word ‘emotional’. Originally the word referred to a particular style of American hardcore punk music, but these days both the music it refers to and the culture surrounding it has evolved.

Today the word represents not only music, but an entire lifestyle that also incorporates particular styles of dress, hair and makeup. There are a huge number of emo sites on the web where teens (who seem to make up the majority of the culture) can network and discuss their lives and social culture in groups. Everyone I come across in these online communities has chosen the emo tag for themselves—identifies with it, is proud of it. There seem to be quite clear guidelines in place as to what defines the emo culture and what doesn’t—one website offers advice on ‘How to be Emo Scene’ as well as listing acceptable ‘Emo Songs and Bands’ and ‘Emo Quotes and Poetry’. Some pro-emo sites even suggest that personality traits, such as sensitivity, are an important part of fitting into the emo culture. So the physical characteristics, then, are just one part of the puzzle.

Well, we were wrong, then, weren’t we? On all counts.

As I sit down to write this article, it occurs to me that most of the labels we’ve been throwing around are used by people who aren’t involved in the particular scene they’re labelling. Yes, some come to embrace their label (such as the emo groups I read about online); some don’t take offence (like Paul), but generally speaking, people don’t seem particularly interested in classifying themselves in one way or another. I’m absolved a little, at least, by the fact that even these guys (with the exception of Jurgen), who are so against their labels, admit that from time to time they use terms to categorise their peers. Even the pro-emo sites are waging an ongoing online war with their detractors, often referred to as ‘chavs’ (a UK slang term to describe someone lacking in culture and intelligence). Regardless, I’ll probably think twice next time I’m wandering through Civic, queuing for a coffee or waiting for a friend in Garema Place. I might just look around me and try to keep my mind open.

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by Elliot

photos by Jessica Mack

Cooper

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I have a new favourite website. It’s an irregular journal of sorts that reports on any protest that takes place in and around San Francisco, California, and it is (most awesomely) called ‘Zombietime’. One report begins: On Saturday, July 23, an impromptu crew of exhibitionists and flashers decided it was a good day to expose their private parts to everyone in Berkeley. In order to avoid possible arrest, they cleverly disguised their public sexual escapade as a political protest. They dubbed the protest ‘Breasts Not Bombs’.

I had no choice but to join them.

The article that follows is probably the most level headed account of a media category that I like to call ‘something unusual that is somehow related to women and sexuality’ (a very large category) that I have read. Unfortunately not all reporters are as discerning or objective as the Zombietime writer. To be clear, it is the distortion that occurs in the depiction of women in the media that I will discuss here. But first, a story.

Recently I went on a date. It was an uninventive dinner-anda-movie type scenario. The dinner went well. We talked about art, culture, our respective professions and interests, food, places we’d travelled. She was kind and I believe that, for my part, I was a gentleman. On the surface, we were having a good time.

Despite this, very little, if anything, was happening on a libidinal level. We left the restaurant for the movie theatre. I had chosen a film that I felt would be an appropriate compromise between our respective tastes. The movie was crap and by the end of it we were probably both wondering what we were doing there, together. I drove her home, she got out of the car, and I drove away.

Now you know. This event exists here in print. It’s not an interesting tale. It contains nothing of the stuff that fills the tabloid columns and the gossip blogs. Yet, ironically, you are reading about this non-media event in a magazine. So the question is,

how much more interested would you be if this story didn’t end there and instead it involved sex, a fetishist act, and it was all on film? Probably not much unless I tell you who the girl is. Why am I so sure of this? Put it this way, Ralph Fiennes screwed a stewardess in the business class toilet on a Qantas flight without using a condom while on his way to a UNICEF mission in India, at which he would speak on the impact of AIDS in the community. It was not Fiennes, but the woman who appeared on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph. We could read that she was rumoured to have been a prostitute, or maybe an undercover police officer (what the fuck?) in a previous career, and that she was ‘shocked and surprised’ that Fiennes did not wear a condom (yeah, well so were the UNICEF officials). She was then to be the famous disgraced (one-time) Qantas stewardess for a while. And Ralph went and spoke about AIDS for UNICEF, but you didn’t hear about that. It’s the women who the media will labour on, fuss over, discuss, analyse and criticise. The media courts women in this way. It turns them into sexual curiosities, page filler and things with which to fill our lives. While this kind of inequality is, on one level, a public degradation, brutalisation even, of women, on another level, the sex-related representations of women in the media have nothing to do with women.

Think about the man in a celebrity sex video. Not only is he overlooked by the media, he’s positioned as someone who is watching the spectacle of the famous woman in the video have sex. He’s no different to the guy sitting in the pub drinking beer and boasting about his (fictional) sexual escapades to his mates. This is merely an extension of the common cultural perception that masculine sexuality requires no explanation, qualification or interpretation, that men will do as men do. The Hilton/Salomon sex tape, 1 Night in Paris, is an illustration of exactly this. For the first few minutes we are confronted not with Paris Hilton and Rick Salomon, instead the film is prefaced with a fully clothed Rick who is watching Paris and himself on a TV screen, doing various things, while he tells us a bit about this ‘movie’ he made. This is his director’s commentary.

Rick actually credits himself as director, thus fictionalising the whole affair and drawing attention to the fact that this is not sex, but a story (though a story without the important element of ‘story’). While he gives his commentary, he watches and speaks about the ‘night vision scene’. For a large portion of this scene there is a full-frontal view of Rick masturbating. About this scene, Rick says, “It’s my favourite part of the movie,” (that’s great, Rick!). We can gather that this ‘movie’ is exclusively about Rick Salomon 39

masturbating. Paris is, in this sense, the instrument of Rick’s masturbation. There is nothing appealing about this. For anyone. So it’s not surprising, then, that it is Paris, who does nothing, who the media latches on to, not as a woman but as an instrument for its own metaphorical wank.

The pornography of a film like 1 Night in Paris is created not in the sex act or even the filming of the sex act. Instead it is created in the press release; the instant of exploitation. The term ‘celebrity porn’ is an oxymoron. Porn requires anonymity because, for the voyeur, the excitement is about the possibility of being discovered. Whereas ‘celebrity’ has the connotation of having been already discovered and thus there is no place for enjoyment. Like the strip tease artist who is already naked, the event of celebrity porn is always already over. For the voyeur, instead of celeb porn being porn, it’s more like reading somebody else’s transaction receipt at the ATM; instead of feeling like you’re doing something you shouldn’t be, you’re just wondering why these people have more money than you do. Pornography, by definition, must fulfil the criterion of titillation (or sexual excitation). It is in the press release about the sex tape, that is to say the instant that the tape’s existence becomes public knowledge, that the entire appeal of 1 Night in Paris lies.

Yet, somehow, when we read about this stuff, we are positioned on some kind of moral high ground (which is miraculously not the lowly stomping ground of the voyeur).

We can read column inches with the news that Britney is getting around without any knickers on, or that the Olsen twins are finally over 18, or that Kim Kardashian (who?) has videoed herself taking (or maybe giving—I don’t care) a golden shower, or that Vanessa Hudgens took some nudie pics of herself for her boyfriend and now everybody can have a good look. With our moralising gaze we have already determined that Britney is losing it, the Olsens are fur-wearing

extra-terrestrials, Kim has an attention deficit and poor Vanessa, who hasn’t even finished singing her way through high school, is just plain young and impressionable. All moralising statements like these can be attributed to the media’s framing of women within an old and socially retarded notion of gender specific hysteria that was called nymphomania. It’s an overwhelming tendency of the media to deal with a story about feminine sexuality as a case of nymphomania, however this is not a term that you will find in newspapers and magazines today. Instead its popular media plebspeak usage commonly takes the form of labels like ‘girls-gone-wild’ or ‘crazy-sluts’.

Nymphomania (itself a distortion) is a term that has had its meaning somewhat distorted over time. What I am referring to is a type of mental illness that was considered responsible for women behaving promiscuously (because women couldn’t just be promiscuous on their own). The claim behind nymphomania was that women do not enjoy sex, or at least not that much. Such an opinion followed a typically Christian ideal that a woman should only have sex in order to bear children. Today the media frequently presents sexually active women as mentally disturbed, or as under the influence of drugs, and it is precisely this that shows the media’s inability to cope with women as sexual beings. There is always an excuse for women’s sexual exploits. Kate Moss, for example, has been berated by the press and portrayed as a slutty fur-wearing girl-gone-wild. But her actions were by-and-large attributed to her alleged cocaine usage. It was not that she’s a woman and that’s what she does. The only information about her in all this is that she likes to party and she’s had some trouble in her relationships with men. All of which is really quite normal.

Now I can understand the sensationalising of female exploits that goes on in the media as a way of selling papers, but there is at least one thing in the recent history of feminine sexuality in the media that leaves me somewhat perplexed. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), an organisation which, while it may have a noble goal at its heart, seems to have some issues in terms of the ethical treatment of our own species. The number of PETA affiliated websites out there making near slanderous statements about women because they wear fur does not bear thinking about. In fact, if you see a derogatory article about some starlet in which she is labelled as fur-wearing, chances are that PETA is somehow, directly or indirectly, responsible. The reason PETA pops up on the radar, however, is because of its ‘I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur’ campaign. PETA puts public pressure on female stars not just to take off the fur, but to take it all off as a symbol of their commitment to non-fur-wearingdom. The organisation will insult women then pressure them into posing nude. I get it, they’re trying to say that being a non-fur-wearing vegetarian 40

is sexy (though, it’s not the first thing that pops into my mind when I happen to find a girl attractive), but exactly who, what or which species are these images empowering? This media campaign by PETA pushes a notion that a woman must be vegetarian and actively support animal rights in order to attract a mate.

Happily, not all media fail to engage with the concept of feminine sexuality without qualification. I am tempted to refer immediately to the lyrically sexual and overtly feminist music of Peaches or, to show a different point of view, the emotionally charged Björkian classics (which to my mind encompasses everything from Post onwards, though I think tracks like Bachlorette, Sod Off and Cocoon require a special mention). But in this instance I think film (less most Hollywood films and any films by director Rick Saloman) provides us with some clearer examples as a medium that has a proven capacity to 41

champion it. Take the recent Ang Lee film, Lust, Caution. The early scenes, in which Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) is being ‘taught’ to make love by a sleaze whose only experience of sex has been with prostitutes, emulate the libidinal economy of 1 Night in Paris. In these scenes, just as in my previous media examples, the sex is desexualised because it is there for another purpose. However, the later sex scenes between Ms Wong and Mr Yee (Tony Leung), in which there is control and controlling, desire and need, enjoyment, domination, struggle and ultimately submission, bring clarity and depth to the sexuality of woman (and thereby man). But the media category that I call ‘something unusual that is somehow related to women and sexuality’ is (like the media’s treatment of masculine sexuality) what it is. If equality is our goal, there is some distance to go yet.

first personal

Here’s a story we received from one of our readers. We thought it was pretty spesh. Now we want to hear your stories. If you’ve got something you think would suit first personal (note the first person part—pretty clever, eh?), send it to firstpersonal@twenty600.com.au

Two things happened to me last week that have convinced me of the existence of a god of irony. The first was an unexpected phone call from the AIA insurance company at ten past one in the morning, dragging me unwillingly back from the foggy realm of sleep. Needless to say, I was not overjoyed. Perhaps a month earlier my flatmate had received, as a gift, a set of new cordless phones from her parents. We now have one phone in every room of the house, minus the bathroom. Never in the history of share-housing was an idea more ill-conceived.

Groggily, I watched my handset ring away next to my bed, merrily oblivious to the fact that at least two people were now plotting its death.

The ringing stopped abruptly, and I heard my flatmate’s slumber-dulled voice in the other room. My door creaked open. I switched on my bedside lamp, clutched at my chest as my heart skipped roughly seven beats in shock, and, once recovered, took the phone from my flatmate, who in her somnolent state resembled a small electrocuted bear.

“Hello?” I mumbled into the earpiece as she trudged back to her room.

It was then that I heard the accent.

Living as a foreign student in Australia does many things to you, but you are trained from birth to respond to that accent.

It’s drilled into you like the alphabet; you soak it up with your

Irony insurance

by Stephanie Wang

42

predicted a long and happy matrimony between my letter-box and a large stack of AIA pamphlets.

I told her, as politely as I was able under the circumstances, to sod off.

Excepting the large bundle of glossy promotional booklets deposited into my mailbox the very next day, I have not heard from AIA since.

Two days later, my house was robbed.

The burglars, probably kids looking for some quick cash, didn’t take much. The computer, television, microwave, and CD player were still huddled in their respective corners when we arrived home to inspect the damage. They took a few CDs, some cash (my flatmate’s), some jewellery (mine), and, for some reason I am still unable to fathom, our entire set of cordless phones. We didn’t miss them. I was, however, tempted to contact AIA to find out whether or not they offered irony insurance.

Later that week, I wrote a letter to God. Not so much a letter, as a short list of the things my flatmate and I would have liked to see returned (the phones, needless to say, did not number amongst these things), commencing with, “Dear God,” and concluding with, “Sincerely, Stephanie.”

I got my reply just the other day.

“Dear Stephanie,” it read.

“Sod off. Sincerely, God.”

morning cereal and your nightly bath. It had been many years since I last heard it, but I had not forgotten.

“Hallo, is AIA insurance heer-yeh, ee dis Steffaany Wang?”

So perhaps it was the reminiscence of days long gone conveyed through that melodious Chinese intonation that stopped me from slamming the phone back into its holder right then and there and pushed the word ‘yes’ from my reluctant vocal chords. Vastly more plausible is that it had something to do with the comatose state of my brain.

I put a hand on the bedside table to steady myself as I hauled my body into a sitting position, and then proceeded to watch it slide in and out of focus as the oblivious voice on the phone chattered away about insurance in her best Mandarin.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t take in much of what she was saying. Of what I do remember from that immensely one-sided conversation, it seemed that AIA had brutalised my circadian rhythm to inform me of a new insurance scheme for Asian students, whereby the deliverance of a certain sum of money to the aforementioned company would ensure me life insurance, health insurance, home and contents insurance, car insurance, membership to an exclusive student’s club guaranteeing a wealth of discounts in the world of retail and hospitality, a lifetime supply of free pens, entry into a draw for a month-long tour of Europe, all expenses paid, and possibly a plot in heaven if I was nippy.

She then went on to extol the virtues of postal correspondence, and 43

little bits EVER HAD TO ANSWER A SELECTION CRITERION FOR THE APS? OUR WRITERS HAVE A GO.

got a full erection, despite being a book. In this experiment we conclusively showed that with a little assistance, self-help could help itself and, when necessary, self medicate. Thanks self-help for letting me help you help yourself. I don’t care what anybody says, you’re special!

ELLIOT COOPER has experience in the development of counselling and self-help material.

As we know, all self-help material is shit.

This is why the ‘let’s help self-help help itself’ campaign was launched in 2007. The campaign was spearheaded by well known self-help writer, Lard Von Kontface, author of Just Get Somebody Else to Do It!, an illustrated version of which is now published under the title APS Standards and Procedures. The project was to help selfhelp materials regain belief in themselves. My affirmations and mantras test group responded well to ‘your cover is the shiniest’. A favourite mantra among the group was, ‘all self-help books are unique but I am more unique’. The treatment had a 99 per cent success rate and the self-help materials were soon back to selling themselves on every street in town. One even

SARAH HART has good communication skills, including the capacity to deliver presentations to interest groups.

My communimacation skilz are second to none. I once communicated all day. All day, 44

seriously. In the morning, I communicated my desire to stay in bed by turning my back on my horribly awake partner and grunting angrily.

Later I communicated my desire for sustenance by demanding that same partner make me a cup of tea. As a result of applying my awesome communication skills, I then got a cup of tea. But there’s more. Later that same day I approached a group who showed a great deal of interest in me (interest group). I communicated my intention to present to that group by sitting down, ordering a coffee and saying, “Guess what happened to me at work today?” I’ll tell you what; I’ve never seen an interest group so riveted. I presented the shit out of them. That my skills as a presenter are practically unparalleled in the history of civilisation is further demonstrated by the fact that, on concluding my presentation, the hottest member of the interest group hugged me and the tightest one bought me a second coffee. They were that impressed, I swear. My point is, communimacation, general wordery and mouthing off about generally meaningless bollocks (and sometimes actual bollocks) is my forté. So hire me, geez.

liberal-hiring strategy. If I pick up the slack and their work gets done, balance is maintained.

As Lao Tzu once said, “Do not despair what lesser souls take from your life, simply steal the equivalent back in office supplies.” It’s only fair.

MARK RUSSELL has an understanding of equity principles and their application in the workplace.

Having spent a decade with the Taoist monks of Tibet, I have achieved a deep understanding of the need to seek balance in all things. My profound meditations on this subject allow me to see past the mere words of your question, and into its intent. You are not aiming for me to pay lip service to a politically correct idea that I’ll treat everyone the same, regardless of race, gender, colour or creed. You mean that I should understand it is only fair for morons to pull a paycheck, too. If the person sitting next to me finds it difficult to do their work on time and would prefer to weave a cardigan from their naval lint, who am I to judge? It’s only fair that they then get extensions on said work as they are, essentially, here to fulfil the cretin quotient of your

GEORGE POULAKIS has an ability to relate to people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

When I was in primary school, I was enrolled in this strange class where the kids couldn’t speak my language and had funny names like 45

Zrinka. I later learnt that this was ESL: English as a Second Language. I was shocked to discover that I was in fact the foreigner. You see, even though, technically, I’m Greek, I’ve always had a difficulty relating to these strange people and their curious ways. For example, my mum once decided it would be a good idea to bless everything in my house, including my iMac, by splashing it with holy water. I’m not even kidding.

Ethnics are a funny people. They own takeaways, they hang fluffy dice in their fully-sick cars, they think olive oil is a flavour, they landscape with concrete, and they believe that natural disasters are God’s way of punishing us for the existence of homosexuals. You just can’t argue with logic like that.

PETUNIA BROWN has demonstrated commitment to customer service standards and the ability to liaise effectively with a broad range of clientele.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m committed to customer service standards. My customer

service standards are miserably low, and I’m absolutely committed to that. I am committed to making absolutely zero per cent more effort than I currently make. I am committed to giving exactly zero per cent more of a crap than I currently give.

As far as a broad range of clientele goes, during my career in customer service I have liaised effectively with bitches, slags, losers, perverts, yuppies, wankers and wannabes, and I realise that a different approach is required for effective interaction with each of these groups.

For example, once I stuck my finger in a bitch’s coffee while she wasn’t looking. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach to customer service.

Sometimes it’s a question of thinking outside the square—liaising effectively with a broad clientele like this requires not only the service of food and beverages, but also the occasional life-coaching session. You see, a bitch deserves germs, but a loser deserves a cuddle and a pep talk. A wannabe deserves decaf; a slag, some new knickers; and a yuppie deserves rancid soy milk and a kick in the fat free derrière.

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NICK ELLIS has an understanding of online technologies, including the ability to identify and locate the providers of online services.

Not having lived under a rock/somewhere west of Idiotland/in a Luddite fantasy world all my life, I have come into contact with your shiny ‘online technologies’. Though my deep felt and strongly held religious beliefs require me to denounce all such wizardry as heretical, I’ve had enough experience with the ‘devil box’ to know that asking the witch-portal, Google, a question, will usually allow you to find the online service that you seek.

Now begone, foul interloper! Allow me to consult the entrails of this ferret in peace; I need to find a wheelsmith to fix my movey-box.

young (and) professional

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland is a 25-year-old expat Canberran and professional cyclist. After a few years riding in Europe on the Rabobank team, Rory recently made the move to the United States to ride with the Health Net squad. Rory is based in Boulder, Colorado, and divides his time between Australia and the USA.

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How did your cycling career start?

I started cycling when I was 14. I was chosen through the government funded TID (talent identification) program. [The program was implemented in schools] to find potential Olympic athletes in sports where Australia hoped to medal in at the 2000 Olympic games. It was a physiological testing procedure to find what sports kids were suited to.

Where are you currently at in your career?

I ride for a team in the USA sponsored by a health insurance company (very similar to NIB, or MBF in Australia). They provide a management company (my employer) with a budget, and the employer decides everything else. [The cycling team is] a marketing vehicle [for the company]. Cycling is also one of the only sports in the world where a company can have sole rights over a sporting team. We’re not the Canberra Raiders or the Brumbies—we’re branded by a sponsor, and that’s what pays all the bills.

How do you feel about cycling?

Riding my bike is firstly a hobby. I like just doing it by itself. I love the competitiveness of racing, but at the same time it has its good and bad days. [There are] days where I’d rather be sitting in an office with a heater and a cup of coffee. But I do think I’m very lucky to do a job that is also my hobby.

What’s your favourite thing about it?

My freedom—freedom to do my work (training) when and where I 48

young (and) professional

front. I don’t work 24/7. I enjoy my life.

My life is pretty relaxed, really. If I’m at a race, it’s a full-on, non-stop event, but a week at home is bliss. I get up a little later, enjoy the first part of the day, and then train from 9 or 10am anywhere up until 4pm. Normally there will be one day a week of five hours or more on the bike, which works out at around 150 kilometres. A general week will be between 18-28 hours of riding, and somewhere in the realm of 600-900 kilometres per week.

Do you get recognised by people on the street?

It depends where I am. When I was living in Belgium it would happen a lot.

Here in the USA it happens, but only by people that are within the sport or also out on a bike.

Finish these sentences: If I wasn’t a cyclist, I’d be... hopefully not in prison. Maybe a little more educated, [working] in the business world. I’d be stressed, that’s for sure.

In general, cyclists are... like everyone else. Passionate, happy and driven.

Addicted to coffee and endorphins.

It really pisses me off when... drivers don’t actually realise the right of riders on the road. Before you toot, scream, swear, and tell me to ride single file, please read the road rules first. Also, try to remember that car versus bike endangers my life [but only your] insurance policy.

The best thing about living in America is... the people. Funny I should say that, but what you see on TV is not a true depiction of what people are like.

I have met some of the most genuine and kind people in this country.

The thing I miss most about Australia is... Australian beer. Enough said.

want to do it. I can live anywhere in the USA, and train anywhere I like. I basically am responsible to be at my best possible condition at the races the team wants me to do.

Least favourite?

Travel. The team travels all around the USA, so coming home to Australia every year is a big effort. I spent 125 days on the road in 2007.

Tell me a bit about your best times on the bike.

I’ve had a great mix of performances that I’m proud of. A lot of them are not actually personal wins, but when someone from my team wins. That’s really the icing on the cake [that is] my job.

Riding around in Canberra is my general happy place. We are lucky enough to have beautiful open roads, lots of bike paths, and motorists that are fairly good at coping with riders on the roads.

How do you feel about drugs in cycling, generally?

Drugs seem to be a topic in every sport. I don’t think there will ever be a way to get 100 per cent around the issue. Unfortunately cycling has come under some of the worst press. When you see how much negativity the press puts into a subject, you see people losing jobs, sponsors pulling out, etcetera. But you rarely see fans walking away. There is still the same, if not more, support for cycling than there was ten years ago.

What’s a week in the life of Rory Sutherland like? Training, how many hours, social life, etcetera?

I have a great social life. I have to be pretty wary of going out too late too much, or drinking to excess, but really I lead a pretty normal life on that 49

books

Not everyone wants a $16,000 HECS debt and the rancid stigma of an Arts degree with Honours, but quite a lot of people would like to know what sort of fiction is intrinsically better—Literature with a capital L, or Popular Fiction with a capital dollar sign. Well, I can’t answer that directly, even with the debt and the stigma and all, but I reckon I can summarise the opposing parties and their respective views. And I’ll even have a stab at a meaningful conclusion. Let’s begin by studying the following true stories and see what we can learn:

Little Billy and the Big Book of Fun Little Billy read a book and loved it. He was so proud to have finally found a book he really enjoyed that he took it to the bar to share his joy with his mates. Their reaction to his great discovery was somewhat different to what he expected.

“You nasty little philistine,” said John. “Get that populist piece of consumerist crud out of my sight.” “I can’t believe you, Billy,” said Paul.

“Do you know how many millions of people have enjoyed those exact same words? You make me sick.” “I was going to have sex with you,” said Sally, who Billy had a crush on, “but I’m so disgusted by your choice of popular fiction over real literature that now I’m not going to.”

Then they shoved their berets down his throat with utter disdain and minced off to find some more poles for John’s arse.

Billy turned to alcohol and never read another word.

Little Mary and the Big Book With Big Words Little Mary read a book and loved it. She was so uplifted by the life and colour in the book that she took it to the pub to share her joy with her mates. Their reaction to her great discovery was somewhat different to what she expected.

“Wot?” said Len. “Wot? Where’s the zombies?” “Where’s the pictures, Mary? What’s the point of a friggin’ book with no pictures?” said Alice. “It doesn’t even have the words ‘Potter’ or ‘Courtenay’ on the front. You’re a massive lesbian commie freak wanker.” “Look, I drew a penis on it,” said Larry, who Mary had a crush on. “Let’s go buy some porn.”

Then they made Mary put on a Supré shirt that read ‘I can’t spell cos I’m a dumb whore, giggle giggle’ and lounged off to laugh at someone in a wheelchair.

Mary turned to alcohol and never read another word.

And now, some books. Read ‘em, dammit.

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J. K. Rowling J. K. Rowling is no Tolkein, but those looking for a bit of escape could do much worse than hang out at Hogwarts for a few hours. Harry Potter is easy to read, good fun and, now, an integral part of our cultural fabric. Plus, if you get the bug, you can relax knowing that there are nearly a million words (seriously) worth of Potter goodness lined up to satiate you.

Jilly Cooper Words cannot express the awesomeness of Jilly Cooper. There is, quite simply, no better trash in the universe. Riders and Polo, the best of all her books, are set in the exclusive worlds of top-class showjumping and polo. The people are beautiful, the horses are courageous, the intrigues are flawless and everything else is funny, sexy and completely engaging. Get into it.

Gustave Flaubert Read Flaubert’s Madame Bovary because: it’s fabbo, you can say ‘oh, yes, Flaubert, naturally…’ at parties and because Madame

by Sarah Hart

Bovary herself is an eerie shadow of someone you know, or someone you have been. The beauty of such exquisite writing is its ability to transcend time, language and social segregation to speak to a complete stranger in a familiar tongue.

Kate Grenville We’re all a bit uncomfortable about our hard-won beginnings in this gorgeous country.

And if we’re not, we should be. Kate Grenville captures this feeling of adulterated pride beautifully in The Secret River. Read it. It wasn’t short listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize by accident. And then read everything else Kate Grenville has written, because she’s not one of Australia’s best writers by accident either.

Dick Francis So Dick Francis writes exactly the same main character in each book, albeit with different

names and backgrounds. So what? Because a good Dick Francis, which is any Dick Francis, is an adventure-laden, Holmesish ride to a sneaky, satisfying finish. They’re tight, they’re tense, and the resourceful hero inevitably wins out over the corrupt thugs. What’s not to enjoy?

Carol Anne Duffy Anyone who’s ever fallen in love, or wished they could have fallen in love, will find part of themselves in Rapture. The woman with the most ordinary name in the world, Carol Anne Duffy, is one of the world’s most extraordinary living poets. If you don’t find a line in this book that takes your breath away, check to see if your heart’s still beating.

So what did we get out of that, folks? People who don’t read are alcoholics? Well, no, that wasn’t actually my intention. People are jerks?

Yes! They are! Read a goddamn book. It doesn’t 51

matter what’s in it, it doesn’t matter how good or bad it is, or what anyone else thinks about it. What matters is if it floats your boat. Stuff everyone else. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been publicly scorned for reading a book some tool has decided is inherently crap. From Jill and the Perfect Pony (Ruby Ferguson, postwar pony extravaganza, cannot recommend it highly enough) to Madame Bovary (Flaubert, deliciously depressing tale of doomed marriage and domestic claustrophobia), books are what you find in them. Ignore the raising eyebrows, the bunching fists and the burning torches—the answer to the good books/bad books question is in your hands.

This advice proudly brought to you by four years of university study, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, and a lifetime of being publicly humiliated for uncool reading habits.

Perfect – Nin

eteenth Hole

Productions ©

Jam that in your Jindabyne The Last Reso

rt – Farrell Fi

A Touch of Co

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lms ©

sh Productio

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starring Mark Russell If your ears were closed to all but pub talk, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Canberra film industry was a snotty-nosed child, tugging on the sleeve of the greater Australian trade. Hopped up on small tastes of the big time, we stamp our feet and drone on about glimpses of the Kambah Inn in Somersault, or The Canberra Times in Jindabyne. In this instance, a swift backhand is called for. But if you dig under the rock of this ‘cool by association’ mentality, you’ll find a healthy coating of artists dedicated to creativity and expression hiding in the undergrowth.

In a city famous for its near-incestuous levels of population interconnectivity, art-producing communities have become very small indeed. This means that the right person can be a conduit to almost all ACT’s auteurs. We spoke to Enemies of Reality (EOR) Media head honcho Marisa Martin to get the scoop on who’s doing what and how they’re getting it done. Marisa has worn many hats during her time in Canberra’s film industry—director, animator, festival director—to name, well, most of them. And from these vantage points she has seen much of what The Berra’s filmmakers have to offer. “They’re an enthusiastic and prolific lot. It’s a small group but they’re strong and keen, and it’s constantly maturing and improving. The films get better every time I do a screening.”

And for our relative size, we manage a fair few of these screenings thank you very much. There’s Canberra Short Film Festival (previously EOR’s baby, though the apron strings have since been cut), short::seasons (similar story) and Lights! Canberra!

Action! (still a strong part of the EOR portfolio).

Tropfest 2008 saw us record the second highest audience nationally, and the Canberra International Film Festival keeps us up to date with what’s happening outside Aussie borders. We’re also starting to see semi-frequent premieres of 52

film

Canberra features such as: Strange James (2004), Perfect (2006), The Last Resort (2006), and A Touch of Courage (2007).

It’s clear that a celluloid passion and can-do attitude are alive and strong.

But all this grassroots brilliance isn’t to say that we haven’t also produced a few personalities to keep the naysayers happy. Duane Charles Fogwell was raised in Canberra before attending the Victorian College of the Arts and subsequently taking a position at Frame Set and Match in Sydney. Felicity Packard, lecturer and screen-writing guru to many University of Canberra alumni (including the occasional twenty600 contributor), is one of three writers on the Channel Nine hit series, Underbelly. And there’s Clare Young, who in her mid-twenties has already managed to do commissions for the ABC, be a runner on one Jane Campion film, 2nd assistant director on another; and is now a member of Bearcage Productions’ stable of directors.

Marisa’s latest undertaking is a collaboration with these last two ACT filmmakers. “I’m currently working on animating a poem by Clare Young, as well as another animation—Tegan the Vegan—using ArtsACT funding.

That’s my next big project. At the moment I’m thinking of using stop motion.

Felicity Packard is script-editing it for me, so the story should be strong.

That would be my advice to younger filmmakers as well. Spend time on your scripts, it shows in the final product.”

James Lane’s short The Swordsman is one such product that has recently showed its mettle in the international arena. This brooding tale of martial arts revenge has gone from strength to strength, winning Best Film in the Canberra Region category of the Canberra Short Film Festival as well as being screened at the Miami Short Film Festival.

And what’s on the cards for the Canberra industry in general? Marisa, for one, sees a promising horizon. “I certainly hope that the community and audience will grow. It’s happening now, which is fantastic. I would like to see more local filmmakers getting onto a national and international scale. I think we will. Once things grow, everything will follow from that. It would be nice to see a really high profile feature made here.”

Perfect photo by Hana Tow 53

live stuff

Didn’t get along to see anything good this autumn? Sucks to be you.

Here’s Charlie Big’s totally biased opinions of a few things you might’ve missed.

The Eisteddfod @ The Street Theatre The problem with theatre is that there’s so much shit out there that it’s hard to know when you’re going to miss a gem. Like The Eisteddfod, a play by once-local playwright Lally Katz, who we just so happen to have interviewed in our last issue. The show begins with Lally—only it’s not Lally, but an actress pretending to be Lally, because the real Lally’s in the audience—who introduces us to Abalone and Gerture (played effortlessly by Peter Cook and Virginia Savage), a brother and sister who, despite being young adults, pretend to be a number of characters in their little fantasy world, including the roles of their deceased parents who refer to one another as ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’. They act out the lives they could be living if they could only bring themselves to leave their house, including creating imaginary friends, pretending to teach a class of imaginary children, using dolls of themselves to have conversations with themselves, and ultimately, performing a play in an imaginary eisteddfod to an imaginary audience while the real audiences watches on. Brilliant.

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The Chaser’s Age of Terror Variety Hour @ The Canberra Theatre These guys are a disgrace. They think that cheap shots at terrorism, APEC and Heath Ledger are funny. And they’re kinda right. Their live show, which incorporated new content, musical theatre, audience participation and classic segments, was surprisingly funnier than their TV show. The highlight of the night was the Anna Coren segue-off. Try this one at home. Have someone yell out two completely unrelated topics, and see if you can find the most convoluted segue between the two. For example: petrol prices and binge drinking.

This is Charlie Big reporting on the growing petrol prices that are seeing many families struggle to put food on the table. But is the food we’re feeding our children causing them to grow into teenagers who feed on the influence of their peers, who pressure them into binge drinking?

And that’s how the game works. Enjoy.

National Folk Festival @ Exhibition Park Writing a review for the Folk Festival is easy.

You make a joke about dreadlocks and then bang on about the great bands you saw and how people shouldn’t make assumptions about what ‘folk music’ can mean. So here’s my guide to making the best of Folky.

On Friday, check out at least five minutes of as many bands as you can. Next, pull out your programme and make your plan (most bands will play at least two sets, but you might have to get picky). Buy at least one knitted belt—you gotta have a knitted belt.

Throw some loose change to a few busking kids, even though they’re not exactly singing in key. Check out voicepopfoible—they’re not crowd favourites for nothing. Ooh, and don’t forget The Crooked Fiddle Band.

Those guys will have you on your feet with their hardcore-folk. Seriously. And for something different, you can’t go past King Curly. Finally, and most importantly, make sure you go see The Duhks (and the rest of whatever you chose).

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like your old “I like “Istuff your old better than your new stuff.” stuff better than your new stuff.”

the sounds of autumn 08 with Charlie Big

“I like your old stuff better than your new stuff.”

Adele’s single Chasing Pavements only alludes to her true potential.

But as soon as the opening track of 19 begins, it’s apparent that she has a lot more to offer than her catchy single suggests. At only 19 years of age (who would’ve guessed?), this British lass has the perfect recipe for success: take some impressive songwriting, add a bunch of tasty vocals, mix in a little jazz, folk, soul and pop influence, sprinkle with a variety of style, and you have the flavour of the month. Get into it.

arguably one of the best albums of 2006, Camille is back with Music Hole, which was apparently named after the hole that this album should crawl back into in order to die a horribly slow and painful death. From the weak vocals to the hideous album cover, this album is just a mess. Yes, I’m still impressed by her a capella style of pop, favouring weird sounds and vocal loops over actual instruments, but if the songs sound ugly, then what’s the point? The only redeeming tracks are the eerily beautiful Winter’s Child and the hilarious radness that is Money Note. Apart from that, only listen to this album if you like watching foreign films with bad dubbing.

Camille Music Hole

Jamie Lidell Jim

After releasing Le Fil, which was

If you’re into funk, soul, or just

Adele 19

56

awesome music in general, here’s what you need to do. Firstly, get a hold of Multiply, Jamie Lidell’s 2005 masterpiece. Secondly, slap yourself in the face for not already owning it. Done slapping? Ok, so once you’re sick of Multiply, which will most probably occur in the year two thousand and never, get into Multiply Additions, a bunch of live versions and remixes. Finally, check out Jim, Lidell’s latest release, which really captures that oldschool Motown feel. Enjoy Lidell’s soulful vocals as you listen to him play every instrument imaginable, including drums, harmonica, Moroccan sax, recorder, talkbox, toy piano, organ, trashy guitar and even kazoo.

Panic at the Disco Pretty. Odd.

Major props to Panic at the Disco.

They’ve dropped the exclamation mark, switched a band member and completely reinvented themselves with a fresh new sound, proving that you can take the disco out of the emo, but you can’t fit into his jeans. It’s safe to say that Pretty. Odd. was heavily influenced

by The Beatles (among others), and I applaud Panic for their bold transformation, which no doubt will alienate many fans. But for all I

than ks at JB to the g uy Hi-Fi Wod s en

care, those ignoremos can cuddle up to their razor blades while the rest of us enjoy the awesomeness of this album.

Lowrider Diamond Amongst the Thieves

If you’re a fan of Aussie soul/hiphop/R&B, which, let’s face it, there isn’t exactly an abundance of, then you need to get your hands on Diamond Amongst the Thieves, the second offering from Adelaide foursome Lowrider. Now I hate to do it, but I’ve got to compare these guys to Kid Confucius. Not just because they fall into the same genre, but because it demonstrates my point. Which is this: while Lowrider’s music ticks all the boxes, they’re just not in the same league as Kid Confucius. I guess that’s what happens when you skimp on band members. And unlike Lowrider’s self titled debut release, there are more beats than drums on album number two, which detracts from some songs that fall dangerously close into the generic R&B category. Which is a shame, because this album could’ve been a contender had it been backed by a full sound. Don’t get me wrong.

This album is still really, really good. It’s just that it should’ve been brilliant.

QUICKIES Portishead Third It’s no Dummy, but it’ll do.

Mike Patton A Perfect Place Amazingly diverse soundtrack to the most unoriginal and uninspiring piece of shit film since Death Sentence.

REM Accelerate I may or may not have made it all the way through this entire album.

Simon Phillips Band The Tree Phenomenal. I can’t recommend this enough. But I can try. Buy it, dammit!

COG Sharing Space This Sydney trio rocks out with some intelligent tunes and solid drumming.

The Roots Rising Down There’s hip hop and then there’s hip hop. This is the latter. As in hip hop. As in the good kind.

Julian McClung One Day Of course I’m not just reviewing this album because my mate’s in the band.

What do you take me for? Geez. Incidentally, they’re much better live.

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celebrity chef

celebrity iron chef backyard cook-off 600 Gerald Gaiman vs Brent Hardman Known amongst the culinary world for never eating his own creations (lest they spoil his magnificent physique), Hardman is out to prove his superiority in collars and cuisine.

What inspiration does today’s challenger bring? And how will the Gerald Gaiman fight back? The heat will be on!

Chairman Poulakis: If my memory serves me correctly, biscuits were first invented to sate the hunger of the ancient Sumerian water polo players. Brought to the west by Dame Nellie Melba, biscuits soon became implicated in the Bolshevik revolution.

When choosing today’s theme food-thing, I was beset by a crate of UHT milk. Needing something to sop up the tasteless, warm milk, I sat down to meditate on what food-thing would be best suited. After thinking for too long, my brain felt like there was nothing left inside of it.

I stretched out my hand, groping for something to take the pain from my head and the hunger from my belly. On a plate beside me I found my salvation and today’s theme food-thing—biscuits!

Challenger ready? Iron Collar ready?

Allez Cuisine!

Iron Collar, Gerald Gaiman: Named after the famed Italian poet, Armand Bisquiotti are biscuits with nuts in them that are really hard and hurt your teeth. The recipe is a tricky recipe because you have to cook the recipe twice to make the recipe crunchable (recipe).

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Gerald s Armand Bisquiotti

,

Quite some months ago, a man’s fantasy became a reality in a form almost never seen before: twenty600, a B5-ish cooking arena.

The motivation for spending his fortune to create twenty600 was to encounter new original cuisines that could be called true artistic creations. To realise his dream, he secretly chose the top Canberran celebrity-male-model-slashactor-type-chef-person (with really nice hair). He named his man: Gerald Gaiman, Iron Collar. twenty600 is the arena where the Gerald Gaiman await the challenges of master chefs from around the world. Both the Gerald Gaiman and challenger must to tackle the theme food/ thing of the day (or whatever it is our Chairman would like to eat).

Now, the crowd at twenty600 come to a hush as the theme food/thing and challenger are revealed…

Chairman Poulakis: Biscuits! Brent Hardman!

Hailing from the hallowed grounds of a certain subterranean Canberran nightclub, Brent Hardman is a bitter rival of Gerald Gaiman.

Hardman disputes Gaiman’s claim to Canberra’s longest standing popped collar with a red Aranda primary polo shirt whose collar was lifted in the summer of ’89. The shirt has conveniently faded to a fetching pink, while its miniscule size has enhanced the sculpted muscles of Canberra’s favourite muscle-jock-disco-blitzer.

Ingredients 1 cup casting sugar 2 eggs 1 lemon skin, shredded up with a shredder 2 cups plains flowers, sifted 1/2 tsp bakey powder 150g whole almonds (with their skin left on) Method Turn on the oven to 170°C. Put the casting sugar, eggs and shredded lemon skin in a large bowl. Beat with electric beaters until pale and thick, like Brent Hardman, haha. Ha. Mix in sifted flowers, bakey powder and Armands. Now you need the doe on a bench

flavours @ Canberra Glassworks

with flower on it. Gently punch the doe until it is smooth.

Divide the mixture in half. Form two long does about 25cm long x 5cm wide and place on a bakey tray. Don’t put the does too close to each other. Put in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the does are a little bit yellow and firm. Remove the does from the oven and let them cool off for around an hour.

Turn on the oven to 140°C. When they are cool, cut the does diagonally with a small serrated knife to cut each log on the diagonal in small slices.

Lay slices flat on the baking tray and put in the oven for 15-20 minutes, turning once, until they are completely dried out. Let them cool down outside of the oven. Store in an airtight container for 2-3 weeks.

Or eat them.

Challenger Brent Hardman: When I’m on stage, dancing, it’s like I don’t know where I am, or why there are all these people around me. Who are these people? What happened to the lights? Why is this bouncer so handsy? I just go with it and dance. Pretty soon, it’s obvious that all the girls want me, so I just go with it and dance. Who are these girls? Why do they want me? Here is a recipe for biscuits.

Half pound of hot runny, butter One half and two cups of self raised flour Essential vanilla 1 cup of decimated coconut 1 packet of buttons made out of chocolate Method Assault the egg and the shooger together until mixed pretty good. Add hot runny butter and essential vanilla to taste (it). Mix it up. Add self raised flour and coconut and mix it up (one more time).

Find a little spoon and use it to make little spoonfuls of biscuit mix-it. Put these on a tray. Put a button made out of chocolate on top of each one.

Eat the rest of the buttons, fatty. Put the tray of biscuit things in the big hot hole in the wall.

Wait some time. Eat the biscuits, fatty.

The battle draws to a close…

Who takes it? Whose cuisine reigns supreme? Who cares?

Chairman Poulakis: Nom, nom, nom…

,

Aunty Phil s Coconut Choc Button Biscuits Ingredients 1 cup of shooger 1 chicken egg 59

surprise, provoke and stimulate your senses... flavours Food & Wine Events Providing a unique and engaging alternative for your next corporate function

11 Wentworth Avenue Kingston Fyshwick Fresh Food Markets 02 6295 7722 info@flavours.com.au www.flavours.com.au

How Croatia got its groove back

by Brooke Davis

Let’s face it: Croatia’s had a rough go. It’s had a hot potato past, claimed by the Romans, Hungarians, Venetians, back to the Hungarians, over to the Italians, Germans and finally to the Yugoslavians. Dizzying, ain’t it? Things got especially hairy when Croatia declared independence in 1991, and Milosevic (aka scary Serbian and Yugoslavian president) didn’t like it so much. In spite of all this, Croatia’s now riding the independence train, its scars from war are healing, and it has become a tourist destination so hot, you can’t touch it. Well, you can, obviously, and a heap of people are, so forget the lame metaphors: here’s a tried and tested itinerary guaranteed to knock your travelling socks off.

Catch a flight to Split. Take a deep breath and suck in the mammoth palm trees and crumbly buildings and big clocks and stunning squares and smooth cobblestones and charming alleyways and the jumbly chaos of terracotta tiled rooves spilling out through the trees and beautiful Italian food and mountains that 60

travel

look like backdrops and the clear waters of the Adriatic and Vespas and nuns and hot modeltype chicks and sea urchins that attack your feet and red poppies that dot the landscape and sleepy sunny days. Be wary of birds with liberal toilet habits: Split saw my total of ‘being shat on by a pigeon in a foreign country’ increase to two.

Ferry it over to Hvar (said with the same rhythm as ‘ta-da!’), a beautiful, ritzyish island that has the only bakery I’ve seen that has ‘silence please’ written on the counter in four different languages. It also has no street names—it’s so small the postie knows who everyone is. Be sure to check out the enticing lamb-on-a-spit that twirls ballerina-like every day at a restaurant near the water, which, firstly, looks more like a greyhound than a lamb; secondly, is completely with head, the face clearly showing its strangled point of demise; and thirdly, has six legs. Eeek.

Catch another ferry to the island of Korcula, to bike ride, swim and watch sunsets. My particular highlight here was meeting Austin the Texan, who was actually from Austin, Texas, and who somehow gave new meaning to the world LOUD, bumbling in his underpants about our hostel room at 4am, screaming such pearls of wisdom as, “Can you believe I bought these underpants? Look at this dick pocket!”

Jump on the ferry again (on this, get the ferry whenever you can: it’s cheaper, faster and tonnes more fun than any other way) to

the amazing city of Dubrovnik. It has huge city walls framing the Old Town, tiny makeshift bars spilling out over the ocean and unbelievable photographs peppered all over the city showing Dubrovnik under attack in 1991, flames leaping and smoke billowing all over the place. I narrowly missed a fight at a bar here that involved a gun and some arrests (meanwhile, I was sitting around the corner about 10 metres away, completely oblivious, stuffing my face with some food-resembling thing that was mostly lettuce). It must be said that the staff at this bar were eerily happy, that Terminator-Happy that comes out at juice bars (every single word they say ends with an exclamation point: “Hi! Can! I! Take! Your! Order!”), so quite frankly, I’m not surprised there were guns involved. My favourite part of this city was the lady who lived just down from the hostel, who always sat in the same spot, wearing the same navy button-up dress. She waved in an offhanded way and said, “Need a room?” day or night, even if we only saw her two minutes ago and declined. The first time, she whispered conspiratorially through a toothless smile, “I cook you breakfast...” (Why was she whispering? Did she mean, “I’ll cook you FOR breakfast?”)

You’ll find the Split to Dubrovnik coastal trail well worth it, but also well-worn. If you gots the time, Mljet is a national park island, a short ferry ride from Dubrovnik, where you can walk lots and look at incredible views. A bus ride from 61

Dubrovnik to Krka National Park sees a brilliant network of waterfalls sliding all over each other and through limestone rocks. They sell Barbie dolls here (which was handy, seeing as I forgot mine), and have an animal called the European Hornbeam living there (apparently, it’s a hit with the ladies). Visit Zadar for the brilliant sea organ, a line of holes on steps facing the ocean making music according to the wind, waves and boats coming through.

Whatever you do, don’t miss Plitvice National Park: a Robin Hood forest, water the colour of a blue blue sky, so clear you can see right to the bottom. Ghostly shapes of tree trunks and sunken boats in the water; 35 metre high waterfalls; walks so amazing I spent three full days walking solidly around it, rain, shine, and even when I had to sneak in unpaid and commando-like. End at Pula, another coastally place with the angriest looking mannequins I’ve ever seen, a Roman Amphitheatre and ‘Bruce Willis’, starkly and randomly, graffitied on a wall at the train station. Don’t accidentally drop a bathroom key into the toilet at a bar James Joyce once frequented. Or if you do, lie about it.

Having said all that, one of the coolest things about Croatia is the fact that the words for entrance and exit are ‘izlaz’ and ‘ulaz’. They sound to me like two Ukrainian beer drinking brothers that live in the forest, have red hair, and wear flannelette shirts. Ah, Izlaz and Ulaz, I will never forget you.

by Sarah Hart

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environment

My nanna and pop have no conventional power at all. They live off the power of my pop’s mighty 80-year-old woodchopping muscles and the astonishing ability of my nanna to light candles and live without a fridge. Their environmental footprint is pretty well limited to Nanna’s addiction to small plastic things from Chickenfeed (the Tasmanian equivalent of Bag-A-Bargain). Good on them, right? Doing their bit for us all, right?

But wait—only 40 degrees north, their granddaughter’s size a million ecological footprint merrily stamps on all things green and bountiful, and thoroughly cancels out any small good Nanna and Pop are doing.

I go out a lot. I buy new clothes. I travel overseas. Yep, I’m pretty sure I live solely off the rape and degradation of the planet. I’m pretty sure that when I made my half-arsed effort at Earth Hour (had to turn the light on to locate the biscuits) I was just taking one more step along the road to environmental hell. I feel a lot of guilt about this. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. No amount of forking out to green charities and alternative energy providers and catching the bus can really atone for the shame you feel when you get out the Gladwrap every morning. And no amount of thinking sorrowfully about inadvertently choking turtles to death while cocooning your pathetic sandwiches in plastic can really atone for actually inadvertently choking turtles to death. We suck.

But wait—isn’t climate change about being positive and making changes and doing your smug little bit? Yes! It is! So relax, Canberrans— in some ways we’re already ahead. For example, did you know that 3000 Canberra homes are powered by gas from the tip? I didn’t. I think it’s extraordinary. I would be so happy to live in a house powered by the earth’s farts. Mugga Lane and Belconnen landfills are bubbling with gassy goodness, apparently. This precious stuff is extracted from the mud by garbage pixies, who make it into shining spheres of electrics with their pixie powers and then leave it under cabbages for the worthy to find and feed into their fuse boxes. Or something. Anyways, the statistic is for real—we rock!

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But wait—the Canberran ecological footprint is massive.

It’s the downside to living longer and being richer than anyone else in the country. Your average Australian’s ecological footprint is anywhere from 4.1 to 9.4 hectares, depending on what study you happen to be reading, but your average Canberran’s is consistently about a third higher.

We love our cars, we love our spending and we love our packaging. And with our urban planners seemingly reluctant to plunder the political pocket for alternative public transport solutions (anyone in Canberra actually a big fan of our current public transport system? Anyone?), I don’t see us getting much better any time soon.

But wait—wasn’t Canberra the first government in the world to set a goal for zero waste going to landfill? Yes! It was! No Waste by 2010 is going gangbusters. Well, sort of.

We’re kind of hovering around the 75 per cent mark of waste recovered and recycled, with two years to go. The leftover 25 per cent sees commercial operators letting us all down with their dodgy packaging habits and even dodgier statistic fiddling, the big polluting jerks. Oh, and us householders could produce a hell of a lot less waste.

So sometimes we rock, other times we suck. Some of us do much better than others. What does it all add up to? Guilt, that’s what. Lots of guilt, an unknown number of dead turtles and a small amount of largely undeserved selfcongratulation. Sorry. But keep up that recycling.

PS—I should probably tell you before I go that my grandparents don’t live without power because of any saintly environmental convictions. Pop had a stoush with the electricity man 20 years ago and has refused to deal with him ever since. He’ll happily get out the chainsaw and mow down a 400-year-old tree whenever Nanna isn’t looking. He rocks.

beyond 2600

New frequencies

by Nick Ellis

There are clouds of data everywhere, and the line between the physical world and the information world is being blurred. Increasingly, physical objects can hold, act on, and react to digital information. One of the most common examples of this is Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID, or Arphid [if you say it slowly]). An RFID tag is a circuit that can be read by a radio frequency transmitter.

There are two main types of RFID tags: passive and active. When a passive tag comes close enough to the right transmitter, the radio waves power it, turning it into a small transmitter, which sends data back to the scanner. Active tags have their own power source and broadcast information. Because they have a constant power source, active tags can pass on more data, and can even collect or calculate data on the go.

RFID tags are everywhere. The security tags inside the DVD or handbag you just paid for are RFID tags; the ones that the shop assistant missed, which will make the alarms go off when you walk out of that store or into any other.

The little black tag hanging off my keys is an

RFID tag; one that won’t let my car start unless the scanner inside the steering column has scanned it.

And the security passes that hang from the belts or necks of at least half the population of Canberra are RFID tags. They are tags that let people get into their office, which contain information about the wearer, which let the employer track the wearer’s movements.

And this is where things become interesting.

An RFID tag is not the same as a normal ID. If you have your wallet shut, and your wallet is in your bag or back pocket, it would be pretty hard for someone to read the information on your driver’s licence. But if I have the right scanner and am close enough to it, I can get that information.

This access to personal information becomes scarier when you consider that Australia and many other countries now issue passports that contain embedded RFID tags. The information stored on an ePassport RFID tag isn’t any different to the information that’s printed on the inside: a photo of you, your name, sex, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and the passport expiry date.

And I can attest to how much quicker it can make the customs ordeal. But you don’t need to have the passport in front of you, or even open, to read it.

I am being a little alarmist. The information in the ePassport is held behind an encryption (although Germany recently upgraded their encryption in response to concerns over hacking) and you’d have to have some hardcore 64

equipment to scan (or ‘skim’) RFID tags from a distance, not to mention sorting out the tags that you wanted to know about from the millions that you didn’t. In fact, most security analysts consider people the biggest security threat—a disgruntled employee selling information to the highest bidder is a much more likely scenario than a rogue skimmer.

But skimming is not impossible, and with RFID tags turning up everywhere, it might be something to consider. Many new credit cards have embedded RFID tags. Swipe your wallet over the EFTPOS machine and your credit card number and name are passed on.

In March this year, the group blog Boing Boing reported that the information on an American Express card was able to be cracked with an $8 US card reader and some custom software (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/19/ bbtv-how-to-hack-an.html).

In the video, hacker and inventor Pablos Holman (komposite.com) suggests using a stainless steel wallet to block the signal, although a quick Google search provides instructions for (much cheaper and more comfortable) alfoil alternatives.

We are used to the risks of digital transactions, but we are conditioned to expect them only when sitting at a computer. With RFID tags broadcasting information from our pockets and around our necks, we have to be aware, even wary, of the encroach of the digital world on the physical.

Don’t let this space go to waste.

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