twenty600 issue #4 by George Poulakis

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cyborgs are among us resistance is futile

feeding the circus pseudonyms the age of simulations

ISSUE FOUR

running away to a high-flying career

the centre of fashion David Jones • Myer • Hugo Boss • Nine West • Jigsaw • Mimco • Saba • French Connection and more…

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editor’s thingo

fo ur

I was looking through an old diary of mine the other day, and a few things occurred to me. The first was that I had a lot of teen angst. A lot. But more importantly, reading the chronicles of what, at the time, I considered to be important, made me realise that every word I wrote on those pages will be documented forever—or at least until I burn them. And so I guess the same goes for this very mag you’re holding, only on a much larger scale. These words are on the street, in libraries, in people’s homes and on the internet—which makes me think that I should really be careful about what I write. And it is for this reason that I present you with issue #4, which features a three-page Miley Cyrus tirade, a story with the word ‘willies’ in the title, and (not) very good reasons as to why politics are a steaming pile of poo. Enjoy! George Poulakis EDITOR

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brought to you by these tools Editor George Poulakis

Alice Allan on looking for love Chronic daydreamer, sports-avoider and pacifist seeks travelling companion for Moroccan adventure. Must be proficient in deciphering train timetables and enjoy frequent stops for tea and biscuits. Willingness to skip tourist destinations in favour of a meander about town a plus. Bring plenty of pens—I know I’ll lose mine. Travel candles will not be tolerated.

Assistant Editor Claire Thompson Contributors Alice Allan, Charlie Big, Petunia Brown, Brooke Davis, Nick Ellis, Gerald Gaiman, Ginger, Brent Hardman, Sarah Hart, P J Rice, Margaret Ross, Mark Russell, Claire Thompson and Stephanie Wang

Petunia Brown on looking for love 20-something judgemental bitch seeks equally opinionated playmate for hours of argumentative fun. I will wear a red rose in my hair the first time we meet; you will call me an unimaginative whore. You will drink aged Cognac and speak French; I will write you off as a cliché and a wanker. No topic is off limits in this meeting of irritable minds. Your mum? My exboyfriends? Your eye-catching facial mole? My hideous toes? A cynical sense of humour is desirable; the ability to see through mine is a must.

Photographers Charlie Big, Jessica Mack and Georgia Perry Cover photo: George Poulakis Concept: John Finlay Kerr Design: Aaron de Smet, Nick Ellis and John Finlay Kerr 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

Brent Hardman on looking for love Hardman seeks hot bi-f (but not really, just pash your friends in front of me, ok?) 4 something with salt N peppa N shooping. Yo. Must be fat (with a ph) with at least five mini-metres of make up (at all times). Blondes intimidate—please (no gingas unless fake, no brunettes unless u have hi-lites). Must not touch: hair, collar, watch, money clip or my brother. Previous applicants need not apply.

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.

Stephanie Wang on looking for love 24yr-old Chinese-born Australian woman with 12-year-old mind seeks potential marriage partner for hilarious hyphenated name venture. Unfussy about applicant’s gender, physical appearance, interests, hobbies, monetary position, social status or religious beliefs, but juvenile sense of humour is required. Will respond to applicants possessing surname Kerr, Large, Small, Dunker, Less or Shaker. All submissions to Stephanie Wang at namesiwanttopassontomykids@badparenting.com.au

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contents

Schmakeover 18

Amelia needs a boyfriend

Argh! 22

Politics are stupid

Pseudonyms 24

The age of simulations

Feeding the circus 32

Running away to a high-flying career

Cyborgs are among us 40

Resistance is futile

Young (and) professional 49

Independent candidate, Adam Verwey

Film 52

Dark Knight, green light

Live stuff 54

My Sister, My Brother

5 18

52 54 8

matter of opinion

Good work, guys. The subject matter of On the origin of labels has been a great deal of interest to me for a while now. I have put particular thought into the classification of the emo and how we identify them. It seems to me that the stereotyped emo is fashion based. But then when you look at what it REALLY entails to be an emo—emotional, sensitive, etc. and it makes me wonder—is this not just your normal garden variety of teenager? ;o) But anyway, I definitely agree with the article! Stop basing your opinion on face value, turn that judgemental glare on yourself and stop the emo bashing! Jaimi

Got something you wanna get off your chest about the mag? Why not drop us an email at editorial@twenty600.com.au? Because you’re lazy, that’s why.

Letters have been edited for spelling, grammar and length.

Just wanted to say I really enjoyed the last issue of twenty600. The first two left me sputtering with rage—the reasons for which I would rather let fade into the mists of time (i.e. I can’t remember and I’m gonna let it go)—but MAN was this one good! I particularly liked the nymphomisnomer analysis, the article Return of the fat brigade, and also the public service applications. If only points were given in interviews for creative answers. Hendo

Recently I spent a few days working in Canberra. During one of my breaks I chanced upon a copy of the second issue of twenty600. Initially I thought it was another addition to a newspaper, but found nothing to confirm this. I read some of the editorial information and almost discarded it as just another sarcastic ‘YUPPIE’ (please excuse the ‘80s jargon) expression of youthful rebellion. However, being a bit of a backwards person who likes to read the sports pages of the tabloids first, I commenced with an article on computer network sabotage in Eastern Europe. From there I was hooked and stole every possible moment to pore over the remaining articles, one by one from rear to front! I almost wished I lived in Canberra! Thanks for producing an enlightening and intelligent journal that focuses on real issues. Christopher Just wanted to say that the latest issue of the mag is terrific. Very polished and amusing. The older it gets, the better it gets (bit like all of us, I guess). Keep up the good work. Fiona

Good work on creating a great and interesting magazine that’s actually affordable (i.e. free). I particularly enjoyed seeing my friend Ben finally being able to tell his side of the argument on emo stereotypes. For a long time emos have been over-stereotyped. Claire Thompson did a really good job getting to the bottom and (trying) to figure out the base of this horrible, horrible stereotype, even if she did get a few things wrong (emo doesn’t actually stand for emotional, that’s a myth. It stands for emotive hardcore, a type of music.) But I must say, I was disgusted with Charlie Big as he used those stereotypes in his review of Panic at the Disco’s Pretty. Odd. This is what we mean when we say it’s an unfair stereotype (the majority of emos listen to hardcore/ screamo music, NOT FUCKING PANIC AT THE DISCO). To twenty600 I say good work on making a great mag. To Claire Thompson I say good work on trying to understand the ununderstandable. And to Charlie Big I say go fuck yourself. Noodle Very nice work yet again. Piss funny and hella cool—no really, I peed my pants and got all cold while I was reading it. Jeremy

I write regarding Claire Thompson’s article, On the origin of labels. I am a Defence member in Canberra and I couldn’t agree more with the stigma labelling can create on certain groups of people. Being a female soldier, I find that the stigma surrounding the label ‘army chick’ does us no favours. We are seen as promiscuous, aggressive lesbians who run around with a Bundy in one hand, machine gun in the other, picking fights with guys in pubs. Fortunately this is not the case. I personally am a clerk by trade, but like Jurgen Parsons, the ‘public servant’, that is only my job. I am actually a musician outside of work, I studied theatre at university, I also enjoy the ‘geek’ stuff like anime and history, I thrive on water and snow-sports, and have been known to get around in heavy black eye makeup and listen to Greenday from time to time. I personally don’t take offence to being called army chick; I am proud of my job and the fact that I can say I have actually been places and done stuff that ‘civis’—yes, we have a label for you, too—wouldn’t dream of dragging themselves off their arses to do. Despite popular belief, lots of us army chicks happen to be straight, intelligent, relatively pretty (the fitness requirement helps), talented and successful. Name withheld

Must say, I’m loving twenty600. Canberra’s needed something like this—young, fresh and classy. Sweetness. Given the recurring theme of sexuality (i.e. the first porn issue, the current nymphomisnomer issue), I’m wondering if you’ve considered doing personals? Not just your standard ‘male seeks female’ stuff though— twenty600 is way too good for that. The openness of twenty600 regarding youth lifestyle and sexual issues ensures that the readership would be open to these. The volume of Canberrans on rsvp.com.au highlights that there is definitely a market for personals in this demographic in Canberra. Keep up the good work! Romany

to do list: spring 2008

MEGAFAUNA ‘08 The hairiest show on earth is back, with 15 of your favourite bands on two stages for 10 hours! 10 HOURS!!! Yet again, local bands will be mixing it up with the finest hand-picked interstate acts. And all for a good cause, with all proceeds benefiting the Australian Cancer Research Foundation. They HATE cancer! Check ‘em out at acrf.com.au So be at ANU Bar on Oct 11 to see The National Blue, Casual Projects, Pod People, Cuthbert & the Night Walkers, Hytest, Hancock Basement, Super Best Friends, Boonhorse, Penguin, Cool Weapon, Tres Terros Cuntos, Inside the Exterior, Monster Elephante and Pink & Diabolik. Oh, and did we mention circus sideshow, prizes and more?! Head to myspace.com/ megafaunafest for more info.

THE WHITLAMS I missed Tim Freedman the last time he played at Tilley’s, and all because I was in Sydney! This time The Whitlams are playing at Tilley’s on Sept 11-12, and I’m going to be in Melbourne. Why!?! Do me a favour. Get your tickets on 6275 2700 or at canberratheatre.org.au and let me know how the gig was.

CANBERRA SHORT FILM FESTIVAL Do you think Tropfest is totally overrated? Do you want to see some local and national talent? Are you going to be at DENDY from Oct 16-18? If so, you’ll catch at least eight films per screening, which means that if anything is complete balls, you’ll only have to wait a few minutes for the next one. Call 6247 9999 or visit canberra.edu.au/filmfest for session info.

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Cirque du Soleil has it all: circus, dance, acrobatics, death-defying acts and people in funny makeup. Coming to Canberra from Oct 23 - Nov 9, twenty600 is proud to offer tickets to all its readers. All you need to do is call 1300 130 300 or visit cirquedusoleil. com, book your tickets, pay for them and go to the show. We’ll do the rest. Pretty sweet deal, eh?

ONE WORLD

DRALION

If you only go to one annual break and hip-hop festival this year, then make it this one. Featuring the likes of Rashawn aka Pyro (New York), O’School (Singapore), Timomatic (Melbourne), Kashboys (Canberra) and top 20 finalists from Australia’s So You Think You Can Dance, this is one display of youth culture dance expo thingy not be missed. Oct 25 at the Southern Cross Stadium, Tuggeranong. Check out kulturebreak.com or call 6291 8249, dawg.

Gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. Don’t believe me? Then be at the ANU Bar on Oct 9 to see for yourself. Go on, I dare you. Check out ticketek.com.au or call 13 28 49.

According to anonymous (and unreliable) sources, despite popular belief that Annie the musical is based on comic strip Little Orphan Annie, it is actually rumoured to be based on the life of Annie Lennox, who, before Eurythmics fame, allegedly started her career as a prostitute. According to the rumour, the song Tomorrow tells of Lennox’s desperation to escape the whore’s life, and You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile was apparently what her pimp Jay-Z used to tell her before each shift on Easy Street. Her days of prostitution came to an end when a client allegedly beat Lennox to a pulp after mistaking her for one half of Swedish pop duo, Roxette. It’s all there in the subtext, people. To see Canberra Philharmonic Society’s version of Lennox’s early years, be at Erindale Theatre from September 13-20. Head to ticketing.philo.org.au for more info about the ‘real’ story of Annie.

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

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We spot Amelia as she’s walking to work. Hair tied back, public servant attire, white sneakers. Immediately GINGER we recognise her as our first makeover victim. “Are you saying I’m unattractive?” No. We see her, erm, potential. Yeah, that’s it, potential. She still has no idea who we are. Oh, we’re from twenty600. Apparently she’s read the mag and knows we don’t do makeovers. No. No we don’t. She tries to get away. We can help her find a man. She already has one. Great! We can use that. Make him jealous. She keeps walking. Did we mention free clothes? “Sold.” After some stylish styling by our stylist, Ginger, Amelia is given a look reminiscent of the flapper era. Now let’s do something about that hair.

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argh!

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So hands up who thinks politics is irrelevant, boring and a waste of time? Well, I’m not here to convince you otherwise. I’m just here to point out how stupid you are, and rejoice in my own superiority. Captain Idiot, over the page, will no doubt do his best to sell his inane view that ignorance is a desirable trait in a person, but please refrain from vomiting all over his article—he knows not what he does, and he’s not very good at it anyway. I can hear him now, the bastard—it doesn’t matter who I vote for, he says smugly, because there are so many other people voting that mine doesn’t count anyway. Oh really? Do you have the same attitude towards, say, Chinese people? Doesn’t matter who I run over, because there are so many other people running them over that my little indiscretion doesn’t count? Yeah, I don’t think so. It keeps coming, like poo from a sewer—all political parties are the same, so there’s no point in voting for one over the other. Um, not true. Unless you can see genuine similarities between John Howard, Bob Brown, the Apology and the Dismissal, to name just a few of our political icons. Here’s a question: how would you feel if you had a kid, a really, really cute kid, and that kid said one day, I don’t care who picks me up from daycare. You adults are all the same? Would you shrug your shoulders and go, fair enough, see you when I see you? Finally, ego giants such as our mutual friend are super quick to hand down what they consider to be the ultimate verdict—politics is for nerds. Oh really? 20

Big nose? RHINOPLASTY from $47 per week Would you like to be a politician? The answer is probably no, right? But not because of nerdiness. But because it’s a shit job. You get no thanks, no glory, crap pay and endless pressure. Plus you have to be polite to a whole lot of self-obsessed retards like Charlie Big, who are totally ungrateful for all the work you put into shaping the very social fabric that allows them to sit in cafés on Centrelink payments, talking about their ‘problems’ for hours on end. Politicians are motivated by the same things as doctors, aid workers and carers—they want to help the community they care about. And they’re even willing to work as politicians to do it. That doesn’t make them nerds. It makes them leaders and catalysts for change. I cannot tell you how furious this slothful lack of engagement makes me. I’d like to shunt all you people off to North Korea, or Zimbabwe, somewhere where you can get a real taste of what it’s like not to have a decent democracy. See how easy it is to find a nice café there. Perhaps you can redefine ‘problems’ while being beaten up by unpoliced vigilantes who’ve just smashed up your new iMac and shot your family. Because, for serious, that’s the sort of society you can end up with when no one gets a say. For all those people who’ve just skipped to the end, to summarise: if you don’t vote, you’re a self-righteous arsehole. If you do vote, but donkey it because you don’t know enough to care, well, you’re just a different kind of arsehole. Grow up.

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oh, shut up!

politics are stupid by Charlie Big

I’m quite willing to admit that I don’t know the first thing about politics. I mean, why should I waste my time worrying about which douche is going to fail this fine country of ours when I can spend my time exercising my Playstation thumb? I have no qualms about putting my ignorance on display, because I know that I make up for it with the millions of other things I’m superior at—how many people do you know who can quote the first three seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants verbatim? (Everything post season four is bollocks, but that’s a different story.) At any rate, in my hatred of politics, I know that I’m not alone. There are a bunch of people out there who wouldn’t be able to name all the Australian presidents, and furthermore, a select few who wouldn’t even notice that I just said ‘presidents’ instead of prime ministers. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not proud of my ignorance (okay, maybe just a little). I realise my vote could actually make the difference towards something that would directly affect me, but I simply have better things to do, like whinge about how incompetent the people at Centrelink are, and wonder why nobody does anything about it—all the while failing to see the irony, of course. Not only do I not see the purpose of my vote, but also, I would in fact argue that I shouldn’t vote. I’m not saying I don’t, nor am I suggesting you shouldn’t (that would be irresponsible of me—do drugs instead). Problem is, I’m easily swayed, and quite susceptible to advertising. For example, take the last election. I wasn’t concerned whatsoever with whom I was going to vote for, but after seeing Bob Brown being interviewed on Rove, I decided 22

Bra optional he seemed like a pretty cool guy, and that was why I voted for the Greens. And as for the local electorate, I generally base that upon the sound of each candidate’s name. Perhaps I could sell my vote. That way I rest assured that the person voting for me would be well into politics, and in a sense, that would be my way of voting; siding with somebody who actually knows who they’re voting for, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. Or better yet, what if the government were to set up a voting website with a series of trivial multiple-choice questions, à la Cleo, with an overall score that automatically decided your vote? Do you prefer: a) arts; b) education; c) sport; d) dropping bombs? Problem solved. So why should people like me even be allowed to vote? Why should this responsibility be placed in my hands when I don’t really know who or what I’m voting for? I’m better off leaving it to the politics-nerds who throw election parties to actually talk politics. That way the fate of our country is at least determined by an educated guess. Here’s a scenario for you. Let’s say I could single-handedly decide who was elected into each role. Or seat. Or whatever you call it. How would you feel about that? I’m guessing you’d be pretty pissed off, because chances are I’d majorly stuff it up. And that’s the problem. I’m not the only one with no interest in politics. So why should those of us who are, let’s say, ‘less informed’, have a say about something we know very little about? I’m not saying that voting shouldn’t be compulsory. Just don’t complain when you get stuck with Howard for however many years he was ‘leading’ Australia for. That’s just the result of giving people like me a say.

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PSEUDONYMS by Stephanie Wang “The air around them is electric. Her eyes burn holes into his as their lips touch. He wraps his arms around her and brings his hands down to her hips.” Ah, pulp. A few weeks ago, on my birthday, some friends of mine thought it would be wildly amusing to give me some books of erotic fiction and spend the evening reading this tripe aloud at the dinner table. The whole affair didn’t leave me with any particular desire to peruse the books in my own time, but it did leave me wondering about the kinds of people who wrote this type of fiction. I’m fairly certain that ‘Scarborough L. Charmer’ isn’t the real name of the person responsible for the work. She (or he) is in good company though. The literary pseudonym is older than sliced bread, and almost as common; a nation and history-

spanning bandwagon that has carried such notables as Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles Dodgson the Marquis de Sade, Voltaire, George Orwell, Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot), and the Brontë sisters, to name a few. In 1930, a romance novel called Giant’s Bread began appearing at stores around England, published under the unremarkable name Mary Westmacott. Nothing to make a fuss about, except that it turned out Ms Westmacott had already made herself quite a name (her real one) as one of the great British detective novel writers. Most knew her as Agatha Christie. So why trade in for an unknown name if your pre-existing one is more likely to sell books? Public perception, for a start, and it’s not uncommon practice either. Many writers who have risen to fame writing under a particular genre are aware that their name will inescapably carry with it certain associations. If you buy a Christie, you expect it to be a detective novel; if you buy Enid Blyton, you expect talking toys and kids who say ‘golly’

so much that if you took the word out, the books would be only half as long. A writer with an already loyal followship runs the risk of alienating their readers if they suddenly switch from, say, children’s fiction to gothic novels. Lewis Carroll (who only ever wrote his fiction books under this assumed moniker; having published several volumes of maths textbooks under his actual name) is another example of a writer who preferred the simplicity of the nom de plume in crossing genres; as is Gillian Rubenstien, who wrote the popular fantasy series, Tales of the Otori, under the alias Lian Hearn; and young adult writer Sonya Hartnett, who wrote a recent work of erotic fiction as Cameron S. Redfern.

Droopy face? FACE LIFT AND FACIAL REJUVENATION from $65 per week There are, of course, a number of other reasons for the tradition. Being a female writer in the 19th century, for example, was often cause enough—society at that stage not being quite ready to read works penned by someone with boobs. Contentious topics are another major one: highly politicised pieces are often attributed to ‘anonymous’ authors (Joe Klein, anyone?); erotic fiction tends to be written almost exclusively under pen names. Often it’s the fear of backlash towards the author that drives this practice; or a concern with allowing one’s name to be associated with sub-par work (many authors write for Mills & Boon under assumed names when strapped for cash). This same practice exists in other fields, too, like theatre and film. In the latter, directors wanting to wash their hands of a project they feel has been taken outside their creative control can attribute the work to ‘Alan Smithee’, an entirely false name invented specifically for this purpose. (People have been quick to point out that this name is in fact an anagram of ‘the alias men’ but it seems that this is misleading; the original scapegoat was to be called Al Smith before the DGA—the Director’s Guild of America—

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discovered that there was already a director by that name). In the London theatre, an actor who does not want his name released or is playing more than one part may attribute his role to ‘Walter Plinge’; similarly on US stages, George Spelvin takes credit for actors in the same position. I suppose if you’re a woman playing a role you don’t like, you just have to pray to become very hirsute overnight, as there seems to be no complementary female name in this practice. In this day and age, where computers and Wikipedia prevail, and information is available at the click of a button, the need for anonymity is alive and well. Maybe you feel you can write more freely when people don’t know who you are; perhaps you’re simply afraid of being facebook-stalked, or you need to get around some copyright law, or maybe your surname is a very humourous word for ‘penis’, or you write for a free magazine in a city so small that half your readership probably lives on your block. All fairly compelling reasons for hiding behind

“Maybe you can write more freely when people don’t know who you are; perhaps you’re simply afraid of being facebook-stalked...” the smokescreen, but of late they’ve been overshadowed by another: the big one. Marketing. While researching this piece, I got hold of a writer and publisher from Melbourne, feeling that he was better qualified than I to make comment on this. (Ironically, he doesn’t want to be named, so for my own childish reasons I will refer to him as Grug). “It’s about what sells,” says Grug. “On one hand, we have the authors who are choosing to publish under assumed names because they wish to distance themselves from the work, either because they don’t want their personality associated with the work or the work attributed to their personality.” Certainly this was one of the reasons Nikki Gemmell gave for publishing the sensationalist bestseller

The Bride Stripped Bare under ‘Anonymous’. “But on the other hand… there are the writers who deliberately try to capitalise on the name, even if that name itself is a work of fiction.” In other words, personality sells. Which is probably why Gemmell, once discovered by the press, received such a hammering. The literary hoax is not an exclusively modern stunt, but it’s one that’s become easier to pull (and conversely, easier to uncover) with the advent of modern technology. In 1995, a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel, The Hand That Signed the Paper, was revealed to be not a harrowing autobiography by Ukrainian holocaust survivor Helen Demidenko, but a highly imaginative work of fiction by British-born Helen Darville. Darville, who wore Ukrainian costume to help promote her novel, is small kahunas compared to American writer J.T LeRoy, who rose to fame writing about his vicarious existence as a drug-imbibing transvestite teenager. In

Stubborn fat? LIPOSUCTION from $27 per week 2006, it was revealed that not only were the stories falsified, poor old J.T didn’t even exist. The stories were penned by American writer Laura Albert, who had a member of her partner’s family play the teen in public. Grug believes that the rise in this type of con has a lot to do with the state of modern publishing. The stuff gets published because it sells, and sells because we buy it. It’s not enough for a good story to simply be that anymore; it’s got more value if it’s perceived to be true. Hell, if it’s perceived to be true it doesn’t even need to be a good story. So it’s the age of simulations. If I’d had more balls (and time) I wouldn’t have written this article at all; I’d have typed up a 1500 word story about my life as a psychic lesbian gaolescapee with one arm, who makes a living as a part-time circus freak. My story would have been published instantly, garnered international fame, become a bestseller and been touted by Oprah before my true identity was uncovered. Whereupon I’d retire, rich and infamous, into a life of relative anonymity. And maybe then I’d write something actually worth reading.

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relationships

? T A H W magazine

I heart Miley by Petunia Brown

ISSN 14497794

977144977265

IDE ALCOHOL GU g in Eating is cheat ANOREXIA xier More like anose

80600

Miley Cyrus is my new favourite person. Despite the fact that she’s 15 years old, I like to take relationship advice from her. I like to look at semi-nude photos of her, and hear her opinions on absolutely everything under the sun. Luckily for me, Famous has finally broken the news that the world has been waiting for: “Miley Cyrus has finally confirmed she dated Nick Jonas.”

Who is Nick Jonas? I have no fucking idea. What I do know is that Miley Cyrus “has now admitted she was ‘in love’ with [him].” “For two years he was basically my 24/7,” she told 17 Magazine. Miley, Famous reports, “also spoke about how she coped after breaking up with Nick. ‘At first I bawled for a month straight. I was so sad. I just went into this weird funk… on the day we broke up, I was like, I want to make my hair black now… I was rebelling against everything Nick wanted me to be. And then I was like, I’ve got to… just figure out who I really am.’” This is interesting to me on a couple of levels. Firstly, that we give two shits about Miley Cyrus needing to find herself. Finding yourself is an activity reserved for rich white people with no real problems, and therefore we should not care. Secondly, that we give two shits about a relationship that Miley Cyrus had from the ages of 13 to 15. When I was 13, I went out with a guy named John for three days, and then got my friend Shelley to dump him for me. Both John and I have recovered. And thirdly, that we give two shits about Miley Cyrus anyway. Who? Exactly. The 15-year-old daughter of a mullet-headed country music nobody, Miley Cyrus is memorable only for the fact that she did a semi-pornographic photo shoot with Annie Liebowitz; that she was forced to apologise to her fans when some other semipornographic self portraits suddenly appeared all over the internet (think Miley in her undies, pouting

at the camera and sucking on one of her fingers), and that she seems to spend her spare time being portrayed as an underage prick-tease. Is there a pattern forming here? Oh, and I think she sings, too. Or something. Anyway, that right there is the point of all this— yes, Miley Cyrus may be portrayed as an underage prick-tease, but it’s because the gossip magazines, those bastions of popular culture, have convinced us that: a) it’s normal for a 15-year-old to pose wrapped in a bed sheet as if she’s just finished a 14-hour fuckfest; and b) that the things a 15-year-old kid thinks, feels and does are somehow relevant to those of us who have a good few years on her. Women’s magazines are scary things. They draw you in, they hook you, and they leave you coming back for more. They make you believe that the information contained within their pages is somehow relevant in the context of your own dismal, public service, glad-wrapped-sandwich lifestyle. I recently had the misfortune of reading an American version of Cosmo. Or Cleo. Whatever it was. The magazine offered a wide variety of advice that included a number of gems for the modern day woman. My favourite of all of these was the one that suggested all women, when faced with any type of decision, should look deep inside themselves and think, what would Angelina Jolie do? This, to me, is an endlessly fascinating idea. In practice, however, it is useless. Stealing someone else’s husband, 29

travelling around the world and stealing babies from a variety of impoverished families, and prattling on and on to the world’s media about the fact that “pregnancy is great for the sex life” is not actually practical advice. In fact, I can’t think of a single moment in my entire life where that advice would be applicable, or even remotely helpful. And yet, knowing all this, I keep on reading. I buy these magazines. I take them home, sit on the couch with a glass of wine, and devour all this Hollywood garbage like a fat kid with a crate of doughnuts. So I can tell you that Paris Hilton described Kim Kardashian’s arse as disgusting, “Like cottage cheese in a giant trash bag.” I can tell you that Matthew McConaughey sat at the business end of the birth of his first child and, in his supreme arrogance, mistook the birth for a party, even going so far as to refuse pain relief for his labouring partner to ensure his personal fun continued. “I sat right there with [Camila, his partner], right between her legs. We got tribal on it. We danced to it. I was DJing this native Brazilian music. We were jamming!” NW quotes him as saying. “The doctor wanted to give her an epidural, and we said, ‘give us a few more hours to keep rocking with this.’” I can tell you that Rhianna, a 19year-old musician from Barbados, believes that 30

steering clear of carbs is the solution to having a perfect physique (never mind the fact that she is only just out of puberty and… nope, she’s not a dietician). I am more than a little disturbed that I know all this. What is it about our own lives that leave us hungry for the supposedly more interesting lives of these people we’ve never even met? Is it a transfer of our own desires— the thought that if these people suffer the same indignities as us mere mortals, then we may one day enjoy the same luxuries they do—because maybe, after all, we’re all the same? Well, whatever. We’re not all the same. It’s highly unlikely anyone pays you $20 million for doing anything. But we should be grateful for that—the other day I read another article about my friend Miley that detailed a possible spat between Miley and Selena someone or other that may or may not have been the result of Miley sending Selena up in a YouTube video. Luckily, Us reports, Selena believes there’s no problem: “[Selena] (on July 11) has said of her relationship with Cyrus, “We’re literally, like, it’s fine.” I have no idea what that means. And so, in my infinite wisdom, I will say that if you feel any affinity at all with these people, then you are, literally, like, it’s demented.

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Feeding The Circus by Claire Thompson

Cirque de Soleil arrives in Canberra in September with Dralion, one in a long line of epic performances the company has produced and staged all over the world. Cirque de Soleil has changed the public perception of circus arts; has made it visible and given new life to what was arguably an ageing art-form. Cirque’s performances are sexy, breathtaking and immense—it’s almost impossible to describe the enormity of what Cirque has achieved for the circus medium in the years since its inception in the early ‘80s. Prior to the global rise of Cirque de Soleil, many of us might have thought of circuses as sad, one-pony shows with creepy clowns and a bit of swinging around on a trapeze or two. Now, perhaps what most comes to mind is the eerie, almost un-human aspect of so many of the performers. The contortionists tying themselves in knots; the strong men building skyhigh, unstable towers on which they balance one-handed; the acrobats prancing across a miniscule highwire as if it were as wide as a footpath. Perhaps Cirque de Soleil is best known for its aerial work. Performers on trapeze, tissu, hoops and straps keep audiences gasping as they soar and tumble through the air, seemingly headed for certain death. Looking at the media furore that surrounds the arrival of Cirque in Canberra, it’s interesting to consider what feeds this global machine. With some 15 shows in action around the world at any one time, Cirque is constantly hungry for performers, and keeps a call-list of potential employees. Canberra is playing its own little hand in feeding the circus, with a small number of Canberra-based and Canberra-born performers currently on Cirque’s call-list. Many performers, of course, are products of the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) down in Melbourne, the only dedicated circus training school in the country that offers complete degrees in circus arts. Others, however, have come from different types of training to reach the great heights of international performance. It’s hard to imagine where such skills might be taught, but it turns out it’s all going on right in our backyard. 34

dance and aerial studios (dna), located at Gorman House, is one of these institutions. dna is unique in that, alongside classes in jazz, contemporary and classical, it is the only dance school in Canberra offering aerial training, says founder, Janine Ayres. Aerial applications were once a signature field of circus performers. Now they have found their way into dance, but Ayres remains adamant that dance and circus are entirely separate fields: “There will always be [a clear divide between the two] because of the interior/exterior shape-holding patterns, and the training,” she says. “It’s totally the way the body is trained to move. Gymnasts are trained very similarly to circus practitioners [in that they] hold superficial muscle from the exterior of the body to make a shape or form. Dance is not trained that way. Dance is trained interior; deep muscles to the bone to flow and hold shape.” Aerial work is extremely challenging stuff. Mid-air tumbling on a variety of moveable objects (such as tissu, the long swatches of fabric in which performers tangle themselves, tumbling down the lengths of materials; or nets and hoops, which are suspended from the ceiling so that performers can swing, contort and muscle their way in and out of a variety of strength-based movements that leave audiences completely agape) requires not only strength, but a serious dose of courage. dna trains in hoop, tissu, net, harness and straps, and it’s through using such aerial applications that Ayres has created a unique style of dance. “We’re not trying to encroach on anything that’s circus,” she says. The difference is in the way dancers are trained, and in the differing skills that 35

“Dance changes the way you move.” acrobats and dancers bring to the performance of aerial work. “In circus, it’s always about the act—we have the tissu act now. And now we have the hoop act. For me it’s about which apparatus will best help drive the narrative and the thematic of my work home.” Aerial remains one of the few crossovers between the performance genres (as Ayres points out, the term ‘circus’ encompasses much more than just aerial work. Juggling, unicycling and fire eating, for example, are very much removed from the medium of dance) and this is where dna has, almost unwittingly, come into contact with the bright lights of Cirque de Soleil. Janine’s 16-year-old son Tyler, a dancer, aerial specialist, instructor and brilliant performer in his own right, has already caught the eye of Cirque producers. In 2007, Cirque’s production of Varekai had a short season in Canberra, and dna was selected to give the opening performance on launch night. Tyler shone, showcasing dna’s unique style and its heavy emphasis on aerial applications as an extension of dance, and Cirque were hooked, inviting Tyler to attend a Cirque workshop in Melbourne. Since then he has remained in touch with a number of the performers, and 36

Ayres concedes that working with Cirque may well be an option for him in the future. It’s not the first connection that dna has held with Cirque de Soleil. Daniel Powers, who worked with Cirque and studied at NICA down in Melbourne, visited dna for a couple of weeks to do some dance work and performances with Janine and her crew. Adam Reid, another performer who went on to work with Cirque, had also previously trained with dna. Alongside dna, or perhaps in contrast to it, are a number of circus groups working out of Canberra. Some are full-time, others are hobby groups. Perhaps the best known of all of them is the Warehouse Circus, which has just celebrated its 18th birthday. Warehouse is a community youth circus incorporating students from ages eight to 25. They have a couple of troupes and offer a wide variety of classes for all ages. Warehouse has a number of trainers, including aerial trainer, Skye Morton, who specialises in trapeze. She believes, like Ayres, that upper body strength and stomach strength are both necessary attributes to succeed in aerial work. The difference, however, is that she is less black and white about the various benefits and hindrances of dance and acrobatic training. “Dance changes the way you move,” she says. “I’ve seen the people who study both [and] they’re just much more beautiful performers. They might work as an acrobat, or they might work just as a dancer, but if you’ve trained in both you’re much more beautiful to watch.”

Warehouse doesn’t offer dance as part of its class curriculum, yet there seem to be few complaints about the quality of their training. Cirque de Soleil has come knocking at this door too, with Paul O’Keefe, an ex-Warehouse performer and aerialist, now working with Circus Oz, on Cirque’s call list. Another great thing about Warehouse is that because they work at a community level, they don’t have the same concerns as a professional organisation in how they organise their performers. Yes, Morton says, something like acrobatics requires a variety of physical skills, “And to perform it attractively you need not just strength, but power and grace as well.” She adds that particular body types, while helpful in various areas of performance, aren’t a requirement for joining a Warehouse class. “If you went far enough up the circus chain to [an elite group], they might [ask for] a body type. Coming from a community circus, I’m a great believer [that] if you want it, work hard and you’ll get it,” she says. Adds Colin Phillip Grant, Warehouse’s manager, “Anyone can do circus. We’ve got no limits on physical ability.” “The fantastic thing about circus is that because there are so many different areas of circus, it has a place for everybody,” Morton says. “Whatever excites you, there’s a place for that in circus.” It certainly seems that the circus is aware of the myriad of benefits that dance training offers, what with the recent successes of a number of dna37

“In circus, it’s always about the act.” trained dancers, but does dance approach circus with the same open mind? Ayres herself is a trained dancer, and baulks at the notion that she is training for the circus in the dna studios. Acrobatics, for example, don’t fit into her definition of dance. “I wouldn’t ever consider it as a component of dance. [Acrobats] are training for hyper-mobility for contortionist positions and things. A lot of circus and gymnastics training will actually wreck the body. Their turnover is so much higher than dancers.” However, she agrees that acrobats bring a different set of skills to aerial work—the strength, coordination and the flexibility that comes with training the body to perform actions such as tumbling certainly come in handy on a number of applications. “If you can’t invert—if you can’t get your head to drop below your pelvis, which is not trained in dance, then you will never invert quickly. It also stops you tumbling in a harness as well. Learning how to do good structural handstands and how to do proper forwards and backwards rolls and things, that that is really helpful to the sort of stuff [we’re] trying to do in the air.” Perhaps the point of all this is that groups like Warehouse provide general training at a community level to introduce a wide variety of people to the circus arts. dna, on the other hand, focuses on specialised dance training that can be taken in a variety of directions, depending on the whims of the individual performer. The end goals are different, but there are certainly some areas where those goals meet. “Circus is evolving,” Janine says. “Originally, if you go back to your touring gypsy circuses, they always had dancers, and then, yes, the domains definitely split apart again. And now, through companies like Cirque, they’re starting to come back together again.” 38

Cyborgs are among us by Nick Ellis

Your taxi driver, your colleagues, that guy who keeps looking at you funny… even you may have fallen to the rise of the machines. Resistance is futile… …is how the ‘Borg’ from Star Trek put it. The Borg’s deal was assimilation— forcibly absorbing biological life forms into their cyborg society. The reality might not be far off, if a little less dramatic—there’s no evidence (yet) of machines pushing to infect us with their metal spawn. But by taking a general definition of ‘cyborg’ or ‘bionics’ and applying it to ourselves today, we can see that ‘people with robot bits’ aren’t the oddity they once were.

A cyborg is any organism that has cybernetic parts (cybernetic + organism = cyborg), cybernetics being complex technological systems that can move mechanically, pass information and/or send feedback through the system (think robots and computers). Bionics are technology that mimic a biological function (biological + electronic or mechanic = bionic). We have been putting robotic and mechanic components into ourselves for as long as we’ve had them to put. Some theorists define any aid to human ability as bionic, and the user as a cyborg. This definition is probably a little broad (all of you reading this through glasses or contact lenses would be considered cyborgs), but if we use it for a second we can trace cyborgs back to Ancient Egypt, with evidence of wooden and leather prosthetic toes. Generally speaking though, a simple prosthetic is probably not enough to be considered bionic. People who fall under the stricter definition of cyborg still probably wouldn’t define themselves as such, and it’s doubtful they’d consider themselves a cousin of a Terminator. Part of the reason is that most of the bionic aids around today have either been around for quite a while, or are simply so commonplace that we no longer consider them remarkable. Every time you pass through security at the airport, Parliament House, or your favourite embassy, you will most likely be asked if you have a pacemaker. For those of us who don’t have a pacemaker, this probably doesn’t mean much, but for those of us who do, passing through the security gates could be very serious indeed.

Pacemakers in their current form have been around since the ‘60s. A pacemaker works by sending short electrical signals through the muscles of the heart at regular intervals, keeping pace in an otherwise out of pace heart. The pacemaker runs off a small lithium-iodide battery and is implanted in the patient’s chest just under the collarbone, with electrical leads inserted into the heart. The reason that people with pacemakers need to be so wary of security gates is that the pacemaker’s pace (and all other functions) is set by a radio signal, much like the ones used in the gates. The bionic ear has also been around for quite a while, recently celebrating its 30th birthday with more than 100,000 people worldwide with the implant, and the major manufacturer, Cochlear Limited, an Australian company, posting record profits. The implant works by directly stimulating auditory nerves. A microphone, especially set up to process speech sounds, picks up the sound, and then transmits it, via radio frequency, to a receiver implanted under the skin just behind the ear. This in turn is connected to electrodes implanted in the auditory nerves, which allow the person to hear. Within the Deaf community, the bionic ear can be quite controversial. As opposed to other people who have disabilities, Deaf people do not necessarily consider themselves disabled and have a strong culture (hence the capital D), that some people feel is threatened by ‘advances’ such as the bionic ear. Deaf people have languages and traditions that people who can hear do not have, and some members of the Deaf community feel that these may be lost.

However, not all bionics are concerned with replacing abilities that have been lost. British cybernetics Professor Kevin Warwick is a particularly active exponent of using bionics and cybernetics to perform actions humans wouldn’t otherwise be able to. And like all good mad-scientists, he performs the most interesting experiments on himself (and his wife!). In 2002, Warwick had an electrode array implanted into the median nerve in his arm. The chip was designed to pick up nerve signals, which were then sent to a robotic arm, which had motors set up to mimic his arm’s muscular functions. From the University in Columbia, New York, Warwick was able to manipulate the robot arm in the University of Reading, in the UK, and was also able to ‘feel’ what the arm was ‘feeling’ through sensors implanted in the arm’s fingertips. Professor Warwick also participated in an experiment with his wife where they both had similar electrode implants connected to their nervous systems. In an interview with Scientific American, Warwick said, “If she moved her hand, my nervous system received one pulse. If she moved her hand three times, I received three pulses.” So what else is there? Think about the Six Million Dollar Man. Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster. Since the ‘70s, the premise behind the Six Million Dollar Man has gone from fiction to possibility. Here, we take a look at Steve Austin’s fictional cyborg rebuilds and compare them with actual modern possibilities.

• A 20.2:1 zoom lens along with night vision and infrared functions in the left eye (as well as the restoration of normal vision). We have the technology: At Kevin Rudd’s 2020 summit earlier this year, a proposal was tabled to fund research into bionic eye technology. In August, news reports stated that Australian doctors Minas Coroneo and Vivek Chowdhury soon plan to start clinical trials of their ‘extraocular’ (outside the eye) implant. Better, stronger, faster: Coroneo and Chowdhury’s eye would allow patients to see large objects and would only work in patients with retinal damage—the nerves from the brain would need to be intact. Other groups are building bionic eyes that hope to allow patients to read and recognise faces. However at this stage the focus is on gaining any vision at all, and Coroneo and Chowdhury’s implant has the advantage of not threatening any vision the person may already have. $6 million? $20,000 actually, using existing technology developed for the bionic ear. • Bionic legs allowing him to run at tremendous speed and make great leaps. We have the technology: Otto Bock HealthCare has developed a prosthetic knee, controlled by a computer that mimics the wearer’s gait. The C-Leg adapts its movements in real time, allowing the user to walk over uneven terrain or up and down hills without (as much) difficulty. Better, stronger, faster:

The C-Leg is an improvement over previous prosthetics, as long as you don’t get it wet. However, South African runner Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee, almost qualified for the able-bodied Olympics, running on carbon-fibre blades known as Cheetahs. Pistorius missed the cut for Beijing by just over a second, but is hopeful of getting to London in four years. $6 million? A quick web search will find you a US company offering the full C-Leg suite for just under $50,000 US. Pistorius’s Cheetahs cost up to $18,000 US, but also need prosthetic knees to be fitted to. • A Bionic right arm with the equivalent strength of a bulldozer. We have the technology: The i-Limb hand, invented by David Gow, is the first commercially available hand prosthesis with five individually powered fingers. The hand also possesses a manually rotatable thumb, which is operated passively by the user and allows the hand to grip.

Better, stronger, faster: Not quite a bulldozer, but the i-Limb is activated by electrical signals generated by the remaining arm muscles, meaning that it is intuitive to use and allows for relatively normal movement. $6 million? About $18,000 US. But what does it all mean? Are we in for a robotic dystopia? Do we have to worry about losing our jobs to someone who can think directly into the internet? For now, probably not. For the most part, humans seem to be pretty attached to our fleshy nature, and unless the procedure is medically useful, we tend to be reluctant to do much more than get tattoos or piercings. But with advances coming all the time, and existing bionics becoming more prevalent, chances are you’ll be meeting a cyborg any day now.

first personal

? y l f s r e k a m m l i f n Ca ung

by Clare Yo

I’m washing up dishes that have sat neglected rough and red in my kitchen sink for two weeks. Clothes and cups litter the house like autumn leaves on a sad day. The guests I’ve had staying for the past week have hardly seen me. My eyes look like I’ve been staring at a bright white wall for five years. There are holes in my skirt. Part of my apron touching the sink is soggy. The phone rings. Ding-do-ding. An annoying ring I haven’t changed yet. It’s nine pm on a Friday night, and I answer the phone. “Hi Clare, I’m doing an article for the paper, and it’s based on you. The angle of the article is if you make films you can do anything...” I’m about to press the button on my two-way radio, looking at the incoming storm clouds, summoning the energy to tell the first assistant director that Miss Marie Sterncerni will be another seven minutes in makeup. Another seven minutes late on set. Another seven thousand dollars. A thunderstorm. I look down to the kissing rats patterned on my apron. They mock me. I can do anything? I’m running to the front garden of a mansion-esque house with two small minutes to knock on the door and introduce myself to the parents of two small children in matching pink outfits. “The director likes the look of your children, who were waving out the window at us in the garden. Can we please film them? They’re perfect for the story... Sign here.” I run back to set and the director doesn’t like the look of them anymore. But the barking dog somewhere on the three kilometre street needs to be given a bone.

in the industry, Clare, why would you still make films...” he asks me, as he changes gears in his superbly sparkling jeep, “...when you can make ads?” I look out the window, and an old grandma scoots down the sidewalk on her electronic wheelchair. Why do I make films? “Are you washing up or something?” my journalist friend asks abruptly. I drop the glass and it cracks slightly. “Sounds like I should let you get back to it.” I hang up the phone and I’m relieved. Hang up my apron and drain the sink. It’s Friday night, and I walk around the house picking up autumn leaves. I put my slippers on, and get to my computer. To finish my film. I’m watching a goddess girl dressed as a velvet ladybug. She prances across the stage of a spirit-filled, crumbling sandstone mansion as the rumble of trains pass by. Tonight the city holds the secret of what it means to be a woman. The ghetto blaster plays a song that no one knows, but we all love. The ladybug bows, wings outstretched, walking stick held high. As the song ends, we clap and cheer. Even the muscleman grips and superman gaffers laugh and smile and whistle. Sunset falls through the window and dust in the air dances an encore. The spool clicks over, and that’s a wrap. Can filmmakers fly? Maybe I can.

“Do you think its true?” she asks me. “I think you guys can do anything!” I’m sitting in an office at nine pm, after a 13-hour day, with little more than a Fantail in my pocket and 10 production funding applications finally finished and bound in front of me. I haven’t eaten anything today, apart from the rice crackers at morning tea, three coffees and conditioned air. One of my favourite filmmakers says we’re all misfits, those who work in this industry. We can’t find a home anywhere else, and have this crazy desire to stay up late and work fucking hard for hardly any money. We dream big, paint horizons wider and brighter than we’ve ever seen, and believe they exist. We work 15-hour days to catch the right light, the right moment, the right tension in his face as he forgives her, or kisses her, or holds her. We put up powered tents in the middle of the desert to make sure she gets the right cup of coffee, the right shade, the right chair. Suddenly I feel shy and closed up and my feet hurt. The dishes I’m washing clink uncomfortably and threaten to break. “I wish I could tell you I can fly...” I’m visiting a mosque on a school night. I’m casting Indian children for a film. I’ve called every Indian restaurant in Canberra, and every Indian person I know, and hope that someone might actually show up. I am met by a lovely and enthusiastic small man who has organised 40 children in single file. They are divine, dance, sing, and speak eloquently (in their 10-year-old language) about who they are, confident for the camera in all their incensed glory. The director is delighted, and I am thrilled. “...but I don’t have wings.” I am sitting in a car, driving with a commercial producer. “You’re already

Fallen in love with your brother? Cheated death? Mistaken haemorrhoid cream for toothpaste? We’d like to hear your stories. Send your submissions to firstpersonal@twenty600.com.au by October 31. Go on, do it now!

little bits If you could turn back time, if you could find a way, would you take back those words that hurt me?

back in time). In fact, to get anywhere interesting, you’d have to go faster than the speed of light, which, according to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, is impossible. So while your grandfather and his paradox are safe, if you keep moving, you might just make it to where you’re headed faster than the rest of us. Excuse me; I’ve got a plane to catch.

NICK ELLIS has a plane to catch. In 1971, US physicists J. C. Hafele and Richard E. Keating took atomic clocks aboard commercial jets. They flew around the world, first eastward, then westward, and then compared the clocks to ones at the US Naval Observatory in Washington. The clocks that moved eastward, in the same direction as the rotation of the earth, appeared to move faster than the clock on the ground. The clocks that moved westward, against the earth, appeared to move slower. Before you jump in a jet to go back and kill your grandfather, the differences in time were ridiculously miniscule—fractions of a second so small they’re almost impossible to measure. In order to travel (forward) through time you’d have to go a hell of a lot faster than 88 miles an hour (the experiment didn’t show anything about going

PETUNIA BROWN has a wardrobe malfunction. Back in the ‘80s I was the master of the side ponytail; the queen of Spandex leggings. I rocked an oversize Raiders sweatshirt and white sneakers, lime green scrunchies and cable-knit 46

jumpers. In the late ‘90s I became the kind of irritating alternative fashion victim that these days I would cross the street to avoid. I wore tie-dyed slip dresses and white Doc Marten boots. I chose a ‘signature’ lipstick that resembled congealed blood, and wore fistfuls of cheap silver jewellery; I carried around an acoustic guitar and was prone to writing edgy grrrl power music that celebrated the word ‘fuck’. If I could turn back time, would I go back to the moment that the AIDS virus was first transferred? Would I go back and shoot Hitler while he was in the womb? No. My duty, as I see it, would be to return to year 11 and rip the coloured rubber bands off my braces, dump the flea ridden, moth eaten ‘vintage’ coat with its matted fur collar that I bought at the Gorman House markets, shave my home-dyed pudding bowl haircut, and apologise to my parents for having to be seen in public with me.

helped me out there. Or when I cried from joy at the NKOTB concert? I could afford to lose that as part of my life story. In fact, I could probably redo most of my 12th year, as all I really did was bumble about in MC Hammer pants and tape Paula Abdul songs off the radio. Now alls I gotta do is find myself a flux capacitor.

BROOKE DAVIS needs a DeLorean. I heart Marty McFly. Well, I did when I was 8 or 9, until he was replaced a few years later by some other ridiculous celebrity that was far too old for me. Though, I think the attraction to Marty was more than just his bouncy, boyish charm; mostly, I just really, really required quick, constant access to a DeLorean for those important moments in time I wish I could go back and undo. Like the time I dropped the bathroom keys in the squat toilet in Croatia. Or when I dropped my wallet in the toilet at work. Or when I dropped the same wallet in the same toilet a few weeks later. Aside from an obvious need to address my incapacity to keep foreign objects out of toilet bowls, Mr McFly’s vehicle of choice could’ve come in handy. What about the time a pigeon the size of a small aircraft dumped its entire digested contents all over my head in Paris? Could’ve

MARK RUSSELL rewrites history. I’d probably set the clock back to around 1560 ADish, introduce myself as William Shakespeare, and produce a shiny hardback copy of my complete works. I would then undertake pre-emptive plagiarism on a massive scale. I assume the volume’s carefully structured font and thin paper would also impress, and may result in me being credited with their invention. Set up the records of my bloodline and family 47

tree correctly, and then, when I returned to our time, I’d both reap the rewards of the incredible royalties and hear unending references to my ancestor’s/my own brilliance. Would this be hollow praise? Yes. Would that detract from the experience? Not as much as you might think. As T.S. Eliot said, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” A natural progression from this seems to be that smart writers commit intellectual-property grand larceny with the intention of being hailed a genius. Doc Brown was a sucker.

and Showgirls. I couldn’t make out the rest of the cast through my shattered monitor. After putting a bandage on my hand and calling Apple to find out whether Donnie Darko sequel was covered under warranty, I wondered if I could go back in time and slap the producers upside the head. And while I was there, I would stop Richard Kelly from releasing the director’s cut of the original film. As punishment, I would pitch a film to him: “Here’s an idea, Richard. A futuristic comedy starring Buffy and The Rock.” That’ll learn him.

CHARLIE BIG has a word with Richard Kelly. I recently discovered that a sequel to Donnie Darko, one of the greatest films of all time, is in production. After cleaning the vomit from my screen, I saw that the cast included Elizabeth Berkley, star of such hits as Saved by the Bell 48

STEPHANIE WANG invests in her future. I never thought I’d see the day. Oh, who am I kidding? With all the sites on the internet that cater for the mildly unhinged, something like this was sure to pop up eventually. The next time you want to have yourself a chortle, check out timetravelfund.com It’s something that falls in the narrow gap between satire, scam, and a rickety grip on reality: you give them $10, they ‘invest’ a portion, and over the years it accumulates compound interest. You die. Many years (they’re estimating 500) later, when time-travel technology has become available, they use this money to retrieve you from the past before the moment of your death. Hurrah, you’ve reached the future, and the interest that you’ve earned over 500 years numbers in the billions. You live happily and futuristically ever after. The site features some absolutely corking lines such as, “All we ask is an open mind and ten bucks,” and “like the cell phone, fantasy is moving rapidly towards reality.” There’s also a calculator on the page that ‘proves’ that with a one dollar deposit, you’d be the owner of roughly $39 billion just 500 short years later—“that’s billion with a ‘B’ dollars!” As opposed to 39 illion dollars, which is less desirable.

young (and) professional

Adam Verwey by Alice Allan

Adam Verwey is an Independent candidate running in the upcoming ACT election. twenty600 talked to Adam about politics, policies and popularity (or lack thereof).

young (and) professional

What do people say when they hear you’re running in the ACT election? I’m just starting out, but people are generally supportive even though they don’t believe I’ll get in. What’s involved in campaigning? I’m limited because I work full-time, but I’d like to regularly put out policies, contact local groups who are interested in those policies and get involved and talk to people. I set out with a budget of $500, and half of that went in the nomination fee. Compared to the hundreds of thousands Labor and Liberal have it’s a bit nuts, but you can look at it as a challenge. I hope if I have some good ideas, or at least ideas that are a bit different, then I’ll get some attention. There are some things that I think people in Canberra are quite supportive of, but the government doesn’t seem to follow them up. Canberra’s a well educated, forward-thinking community, but for instance, we don’t have light rail. According to the ACT light rail group, three-quarters of people support it, so you wonder why it’s not happening. What are your priorities, policy-wise? At the moment the dominant form of entertainment in Canberra pubs and clubs, particularly in winter, is poker machines. Not only is that a welfare issue, but it means less support for Canberran performers and musicians. It’s not very community-minded to be sitting in front of a computer screen that is essentially stealing your money. So it would be good to have poker machines taken out, and instead support people who are doing good things culturally and artistically. That could involve a buy-back of poker machine licences. We could also reduce people’s ability to be problem gamblers and the profitability of the machines by removing ATMs from pubs and clubs. Public transport is another issue I feel strongly about. There’s no incentive for someone like me to catch public transport when it would take me 20 minutes instead of five minutes in a car. It doesn’t make sense that we have a bus service with barriers in the way of people using it. As a young person, I’d like to see the Nightrider bus brought back for the whole year, even if it’s just on weekends. Then people won’t have to make 50

STOP THINKING YOUR MATES ARE HOME LOAN GURUS. START THINKING I’LL TALK TO AN EXPERT. their own way home after drinking in Civic—it’s a safety issue as much as an environmental issue. The environment is [also] a special interest of mine. The building I work in has an 80 per cent water and energy saving. If a small company like ours can do that, think about what governments and much larger companies could do. Why can’t bigger groups with much more impact do similar things? We can all do things differently, but leadership has to come from the top, and more often than not it doesn’t. What do you think is standing in the way of these changes? It’s silly because we only have one small house of parliament in Canberra, and at the moment they have a majority government. They could have done these things over the last four years, but I think people who get elected through the party system aren’t necessarily the best people to push things forward. They’re thinking about maintaining their position and being re-elected when they should focus on doing one or two positive, lasting things. Often you don’t even know who’s elected because you don’t hear from them until they put a letter in your mailbox asking to be re-elected. When did you become interested in politics? I was elected to the University of Canberra Students’ Association as an Independent, and at the time the committee was full of Labor and Liberal people. Still, it was easy to get things done if you wanted to. We managed to bring in changes that were quite simple to achieve, but for years these same Labor and Liberal students had been getting elected, and then they felt their job was done. These are the same people who get elected to the parliaments. What do you think your chances are of being elected? Realistically, I don’t expect to. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to be elected. I would love to go into an office every day and think about the ways I could improve my community.

Your mates may know all there is to know about lots of things, but home loans probably isn’t one of them. So don’t just ask your friends. Ask your all-seeing, all-knowing friends in the home loan business. Ask Aussie. We do the hard work of nding you a better deal so you could save time and money Our unique software compares 100s of loans from Australia’s leading lenders We chat with the big banks every day and know all about their latest offers Our service is fast, free and easy

There. Thinking done. Call Adrian Mercieca 0401 021 301 adrian.mercieca@aussie.com.au www.aussie.com.au/adrian.mercieca

Winner Best Mortgage Broker and Best Non-Bank Lender – Australian Banking & Finance Magazine Awards 2008

Dark Knight, green light

starring Mark Russell “Can you believe they made a second Step Up movie?” How many times have a film’s previews made you wrench a buttered hand from your popcorn, shielding your eyes from the lack of originality in Hollywood? Sequels, rehashes, ‘reimaginings’, or the latest trend of pop culture adaptations à la comic book films; the cash-driven nature of the industry means wholly fresh ideas often prove too risky to be green-lit. We must study these enemies of invention, if only so we can spot those films that are still striving for greatness despite being part of this stale movement. Screenwriting guru (and the man behind The Princess Bride) William Goldman once said that sequels are whores’ movies. There’s no doubt that in this equation the studio heads are the pimps, cajoling filmmakers into selling their body of work for cheap thrills and quick cash. But then, naturally, we, the audience, become ‘Johns’. And let’s face it, it’s an apt description. Every weekend we dodge the more respectable art-house flicks to cruise sticky-carpeted multiplexes, desperately seeking a loveless and impersonal transaction. We aren’t there for a cinematic soulmate, so Hollywood takes our money, then starfishes by repackaging an earlier film. The sequel almost never meets the power of the original, and for every follow-up Godfather or Aliens film, we get a thousand Shrek IIs or Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blondes. The rehash is one of the more glaring crimes perpetrated on the film-going community. Why bother thinking when you can just trawl the ‘classics’ section of the DVD store for films that are old enough to be a vague memory for many people, but recent enough that some of the original cast members are alive to do self-referential cameos? These vary greatly in quality from the sacrilegious and terrible 1998 Gus Van Sant version of Psycho—remade shot for shot in colour (now with added masturbatory sound effects!)—to the charismatic Ocean’s Eleven of 2001, which actually improved on the 1960 original. This category also includes film versions of classic TV shows like Charlie’s Angels, Swat and Dukes of Hazard. Pre-packaged blockbuster—just add A-list actor. 52

film

The younger, and slightly ‘special’ cousin to the rehash, is the ‘reimagining’. A shiver-inducing term first coined by Tim Burton to describe his version of Planet of the Apes; the filmmaker redoes an existing work, but with a few changes of varying subtlety. The most obvious examples of this are films that are remade in another language such as the sublime The Departed or the upcoming Nicholas Cage vehicle Bangkok Dangerous—which looks about as credible as Cage’s many wigs. These work particularly well because they allow film wankers to discuss the relative cultural influences that affect the interpretations of the original material. Latex costumes, super powers and special effects; comics are the perfect lazy studio’s film—not least of all because they come with pre-written storyboards. You’ve got a guaranteed audience who’ll even show up to the premiere in costume. The structure is easy: we meet our hero as an ordinary person, then comes the event that gives them superpowers, then we get half an hour of inventive uses of said superpowers. Can the films be good? X-men 1 and 2, Iron Man, Batman Begins and The Incredible Hulk say yes; Ghostrider, Daredevil, the third X-men and Spiderman films bitch-slap you with a radioactive no (emo Peter Parker, anyone?). Studios are starting to run out of the genuinely awesome characters, though this seems to be encouraging them to scrape the bottom of the hero barrel rather than approach other mediums. But—and it’s a big but—exemplifying all of these categories and yet still managing to be creative, original and excellent is a film that epitomises blockbuster brilliance. The Dark Knight is a direct sequel to Batman Begins as well as a less direct descendent of the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher films. It’s a stretch to say it rehashes the ‘60s TV show, but it does share a lot of similarities with the animated series of the ‘90s. It also reimagines Burton’s earlier Joker-based Batman film. And of course, the characters have adorned many glossy comic book pages. Christopher Nolan’s second outing with the bat has lived up to the hype, and hasn’t phoned it in on the back of Heath’s untimely demise. An admirable feat, though the inevitable downside is that this kind of success merely keeps Hollywood feeding the cash cow no matter how much sour milk it gives. 53

live stuff

Didn’t get along to see anything good this winter? Sucks to be you. Here’s Charlie Big’s totally biased opinions of a few things you might’ve missed.

My Sister, My Brother @ The Playhouse As somebody whose entire knowledge of dance comes from watching So You Think You Can Dance, attending way too much musical theatre and being an avid fan of Quantum Leap for the past five years, I believe that this is exactly what qualifies me to review dance. And the fact is, Canberra dance audiences predominantly consist of philistines posing as arts critics. Enter Charlie Big. It pains me to admit it, but this year’s Quantum Leap performance was my least favourite of all. By no means is this because of a lack of quality. It’s just that My Sister, My Brother—dare I say it—erred on the side of wank. Not only did it try tackling too many issues (from 9/11 to poverty), but when the work finally zeroed in on the title theme, it made an unfortunate entrance into Wanksville. While the dancers performed the engrossing choreography quite well, they were let down by a bizarre audiovisual and voiceover display that distracted from the dance itself. The audience was subjected to images of the World Trade Centre, text showing statistics about poverty, heavy handed voiceover dialogue and bizarre slide projections of shopping trolleys and car tyres (?!?). There’s no doubt with Quantum Leap that the talent is there; I just hope in future they can trim back the wank and let the dance speak for itself.

Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me @ Theatre 3 An American, an Englishman and an Irishman walk into a bar. Ok, so that’s not quite the setup for Frank McGuiness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. In fact, the only bars are the ones these three hostages are trapped behind. Held captive in Beirut for reasons unknown, what unfolds is a touching story of three men and their struggle for survival. The simplicity is apt: three actors, minimal set, one light. The performances are not what I’ve come to expect of amateur theatre in Canberra. That is to say they are far from amateur. Duncan Lay stands out as Edward; his Irish accent so flawless it’s almost unintelligible. Jarrad West and Ian Croker deliver surprising performances; their musical theatre experience doesn’t influence their roles. It’s always exciting seeing new theatre companies in Canberra. After all, there are only so many times you can see stagings of Les Misérables and West Side Story. Everyman Theatre shows a lot of promise, and I look forward to seeing what they pull out next.

“Everyone “Everyone deserves music, sweet music.” deserves music, sweet music.”

the sounds of winter 08 with Charlie Big

“Everyone deserves music, sweet music.”

Jason Mraz We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.

I’m going to marry Jason Mraz. I’m going to marry the shit out of him. That’s why it annoys me that people really underestimate my husband-to-be’s awesome talent by just dismissing him as some pretty boy popstar. Granted, he is pretty (my God is he pretty), but he also has one of the sexiest voices on the planet, a hugely versatile style and the ability to take pop to the next level. Do I think that this is Jason Mraz’s most impressive album to date? I do, Jason. I do. Kisschasy too b or not too b

Lame album title aside, if you’re 56

a hardcore Kisschasy fan like I am, who’s always first to buy their singles because you know they never disappoint with bonus tracks, you’ll already have this collection of b-sides and EPs. If you only own their two albums, buy this collection of rarities, conveniently compiled onto the one disc, as they’re different to what you’d expect from Kisschasy; some tracks are even better than the stuff that makes it onto the albums. If, however, you only like whichever of their songs is being played on the radio, then you’ve got some learning to do. Coldplay Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

I can’t quite remember how exactly I acquired Coldplay’s entire back catalogue, but it exists on my iPod for the sole purpose of skipping

their tracks whenever they come on. Which is why Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends is such a refreshing breath of Cold air. It sees more than just a return to form; this could very well be a brand new debut album from Coldplay, who have reinvented themselves after a string of hits and the dismal X&Y. Groundbreaking stuff. Sam Sparro Sam Sparro

There’s no doubt that Black & Gold is one brilliant single, and Too Many Questions is equally as catchy, but as an album, this just isn’t quite there. Which really sucks, because there’s so much potential here. Problem is, at least a third of these tracks are just filler. I mean, as quirky as Recycle It! is—“Stop, think about it, don’t throw it away”—at the end of the day, even Mr Sparro can’t make recycling cool. Oh, and let’s not forget the lyrical genius of Clingwrap: “You must’ve thought I was a snack, because you’re sticking to me like clingwrap.” Then you have a bunch of tracks that have an ‘80s Prince feel to them, but I’ve got news for you: Prince already did that. In the ‘80s. Remember? The hidden track is one redeeming feature, and I thoroughly recommend you get a hold of the

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

acoustic version of Black & Gold. And before I forget, you should make comparisons to Jamiroquai. Go on, you know you want to. Only difference is, instead of silly hats, Sparro has opted for silly glasses. Duffy Rockferry

Instead of wasting my time and yours, I should have just told you to refer to the previous review for my opinion of Rockferry. Sure, they’re two completely different albums, but they were both disappointments for the same reason. You see, it’s quite conflicting to review an album when you respect an artist’s music, but you realise they couldn’t be bothered writing enough quality material, and end up having a bunch of tracks that are just bleh. Sure, Mercy is a great single, Hanging on Too Long captures that Motown sound (or is that just because it sounds reminiscent of I Heard it Through the Grapevine?) and Stepping Stone is a standout track, but what’s the point of Serious? Seriously? Then you’ve got Delayed Devotion and Scared, which are both nothing songs. Whereas Rockferry is okay, but you’d want more than just okay for the title track. My suggestion: just jump on iTunes and buy the good tracks.

QUICKIES Gavin DeGraw Gavin DeGraw This really wasn’t worth the wait. *sob* The Herd Summerland The Herd’s most mature album to date. Sigur Ròs With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly Stunning. Absolutely stunning. Beck Modern Guilt I’ve never understood what it is about Beck that appeals to people. Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago Listen to this album if you like listening to albums like this album. Album. The Living End White Noise These guys used to be unique. Now all that I’m hearing is white noise. Michael Franti & Spearhead All Rebel Rockers I never want to hear this bollocks on toast ever again. Justin Nozuka Holly This really is too good to be true. 57

celebrity chef

hard man, hard food prepared by Brent Hardman Please note: due to an unfortunate hair straightening accident, regular twenty600 celebrity chef Gerald Gaiman was not able to produce this issue’s cooking column. Gerald asks that in lieu of flowers, people should send hair products to Gaiman, c/o twenty600, 123 Fake Street, Harrison/Forde. As a replacement, we are proud to re-introduce Brent Hardman, runner up in the All Academy Turn Up Your Colla’ and Holla competition, and the only man known to have lowered a George Foreman grill.

It’s not easy being hard. Salads are not hard. Occasionally, you need to be hard, but you need to eat a salad. This is hard. But Hardman can make it easy. Your general salad is disgusting, made with leaves and nuts and other things that only girls and wombats eat, so you’re fully up a tree without a paddle if you want to make one. But the biggest problem the Hardman has with salads is that there’s no protein! (Note: the Hardman eats at least three protein bars a day, not to mention two patiented Hardshakes [TM] and a frozen eggsicle. The Hardman’s doctor advises that if he continues this diet, his liver, kidneys and spleen will explode. But the doc’s fat [without a ph] so Hardman will not be following that piece of adversity.) So, the question on everyone’s hips is; how does the Hardman make salads hard? In honour of at least three of the Hardman’s ex-girlfriends’ Italian hermitage, the Hardman is proud to present a classic salad. 58

First invented by Julius Caesar when he was working at a café in Harlem, the Caesarian Salad happened when someone asked Julius for a salad but he only knew how to cook bacon and eggs.

the caesarian salad

ﬂavours @ Canberra Glassworks

surprise, provoke and stimulate your senses... ﬂavours Food & Wine Events Providing a unique and engaging alternative for your next corporate function Ingredients 2 lettuces cos (it’s a salad and you need them) 8 tiny, hairy, salty fish fillets (about half a can) 4 rashers bacon 4 slices bread, cut up into squares 1 clove garlic, cut in half Vegetable oil, for frying 4 hard eggs Shaved hard cheese (Palmerston) Dressing 1 raw egg 1 clove garlic, crushed 2 tbsp lemon juice 1 cup olive oil Method Remove the outer leaves of the lettuce and chop off the base. Separate the inner leaves and wash. Let them dry on a tea towel while you fry the bacon and bread and make the dressing and wish you were this cool. Cut the big bits of fat off the bacon, fatty, then chop it up and place it in a frying pan and cook it until the bacon is hard. Put the bacon on paper towel to let more fat come off it. Next, add 1 cm vegetable oil to the same pan. Heat the oil up to moderately high, add

the garlic and cook for one or two minutes to release the flavour. What’s your flavour? Remove the garlic from the oil. Carefully add the bread cubes to hot oil, and if a bit of oil splatters you, stop being a girl and keep cooking, turning the bread until old and brown (that should take two minutes). The bread has now become croutons (which is African for fried bread squares). Take them out from the oil with a spoon that has holes in it and put it on paper towel to let the fat get out. You also need to cook your eggs hard. Put the eggs in a saucepan of cold water. Make the water hot and with big bubbles, then let it have small bubbles for seven to eight minutes. Take the eggs out of the pan and put them into iced water to stop them cooking. If you like your hard eggs soft in the centre, I hate you. To make the dressing, put the raw egg, garlic, lemon juice and tiny, hairy, salty fish into a blender and turn it on. Leaving the motor on, pour olive oil into it in a thin stream and rev it hard until the dressing is thick (just the way ladies like). Put the leaves, croutons and hard eggs in a big bowl. Put the bacon and tiny, hairy, salty fish and the dressing on it. Remember to pick out the tiny, salty, hairy fish before you eat it because they are disgusting. 59

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

The land of Willies by Brooke Davis

Yes there’s tartan, yes there’s bagpipes, and yes, a lot of them do look like Groundskeeper Willie. But it gets even better. Scotland is wild, craggy and windy—and that’s just the locals. The Highlands are epic, the lochs are huge and glassy, the cities are edgy-cool and the tiny villages are utterly endearing. And let’s face it: the world would be a far better place if more people spoke with a Scottish accent. Perched on top of England like a bouffant hairstyle, there’s a lot more to Scotland than going starkers under your kilt. It’s been invaded by the English about a gazillion times, as well as by the Romans, Vikings and Norway, but this James Dean of the UK is having none of it. This is a place that can’t be tamed. Here are five things to do while you’re there. 60

travel

See some really, really old stuff The cemeteries are all teetering, crumbling ivy-ridden things, as are the hundreds of castles that pop up on the greener-than-green rolling hills. The Orkney Islands, a dramatically beautiful group of islands 9.5 kilometres off the north coast, are home to The Ring of Brodgar, a group of Neolithic standing stones thought to have been erected around 2500 BC. And the air in Scotland is thick with such a long, exciting and bloody history that it makes that 300 movie look like Bananas in Pyjamas. Not only is there an actual period of Scottish history in the late 1600s that is referred to as ‘The Killing Time’, but there are so many ‘Battles Of (insert Scottish place name here)’ that it’s more difficult to find a time when they weren’t fighting people. You can stand on the battlefields at Culloden, where 1250 men were lost to English forces in an hour. You can hear rich stories about Mary, Queen of Scots, the Stone of Destiny and Rob Roy. And you can have a little giggle at the idea of there being a Battle of Killiecrankie. Visit Edinburgh Edinburgh’s Old Town is all cobblestoned streets, curly lamps and cosy pubs. There’s also a guy that walks around with a blue face pretending he’s William Wallace, and a crapload of tourists, but it’s so mindblowingly charming, you won’t care. New Town is completely—dare I say it—cosmopolitan. The Edinburgh Castle looms over it all spectacularly. A teensy walk up a hill to Arthur’s Seat and you’ve got the best view of the city. If you’re there

around New Years you can participate in Edinburgh’s Hogmany Torchlight Procession, which involves carrying a Viking ship around the city, holding fiery torches, and trying to avoid being set on fire by the fiery torches of others. See a shinty game Unique to Scotland, shinty is one of the oldest games in the world. It’s like a mixture of hockey, golf and lacrosse, except they don’t wear protection and can lift their sticks as high as they want. Needless to say, it gets a little rough. Find out the real story of Braveheart William Wallace is pretty much the hero of all heroes in Scotland, mainly because he often defeated the British when he wasn’t supposed to. The Battle of Stirling Bridge was the coolest, with the amateurish Scots knocking off the well-oiled machine of the British army when they were outnumbered three to one. Incidentally, the Scots get a little touchy about the way Mel Gibson portrayed him as a short dude kitted out in Highlander gear. He was, in fact, really tall and dressed like a knight; check him out for yourself at the Wallace Monument on a hilltop near Stirling. Interestingly, just metres 61

away in the carpark is another ‘William Wallace’ statue. Erected in 1997, it looks unequivocally like Mel Gibson. The Scots despise it, and, because of vandalism, poor Mel and his message of freedom have to be caged overnight. Do all the clichéd things Eat haggis. Okay, so it is sheep’s heart, liver and lungs mixed with a few things, and boiled inside of a sheep’s stomach. And it can look a little like intestines. But add a chaser of whiskey and it really ain’t that bad. Take a picture of the most photographed castle in the world, the Eilean Donan. See some traditional music: it’s sweaty, footstomping, and you’ll probably get an elbow in the face, but the dexterity of the girl on the fiddle and the expanding neck of the bagpiper will make it worthwhile. Check out the Hairy Coos, the red-haired shaggy hippies of the cow world. And what’s a trip to Scotland without a dip in Loch Ness? While you’re there, have a chat to the guy who’s lived there in a van for over 15 years, after selling his house to conduct Loch Ness Monster research. It appears to have culminated in selling tiny, overpriced clay models of Nessie to hapless tourists.

by Sarah Hart photo by Jessica Mack

I always associated community garden plots with very old, very eccentric English gents with a taste for wrinkles and weird hats. Like many of my baseless assumptions, this is entirely inaccurate, especially where Canberra is concerned. How do I know this? Because one of our alive and thriving subcultures, which I have only recently discovered, happens to be community gardening, in all its grotty, rewarding glory.

environment

The Canberra Organic Growers Society Inc, or COGS, is the mothership of community gardening in Canberra. COGS is a notfor-profit organisation that has been supporting Canberra’s organic gardeners since 1977 (with a bit of help from a series of progressive and supportive territory governments). Its main aim is to encourage alternative styles of gardening, and to support the sharing of ideas and resources related to organic gardening. And the jewels in its composted crown are the eleven organic community gardens it maintains throughout the region, from Charnwood in the North to Theodore in the South. It would help at this point if, for the duration of this article, we could put aside our ingrained and poorly informed resistance to anything remotely connected with hippies. Growing food organically brings endless benefits. It encourages biodiversity (that’s where things don’t get extinct) and recycling, works with the environment instead of against it, results in better tasting, longer-lasting produce, and improves the soil instead of raping it to death (like, say, chemical ridden monoculture farming). It’s inspiring stuff. But it’s true. And you can contribute with your own two hands. So how does a keen, green, concrete-bound Canberran get started? Easy—call and ask about a plot. Availability varies from garden to garden, but if you’re persistent, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting a few square metres. If there’s nothing available in your preferred suburb, you can try the next one over, or put yourself on a waiting list Each garden is administered by a garden committee elected annually by the plot-holders at the garden. The convener of the garden manages plot allocations and ensures the garden rules are followed. Rules range from secretarial—you need to be a member of COGS— through to the biological—you must control your couch (invasive weed)—to the commonsense—use your plot or lose it. Once you’ve got your plot and pulled on your gumboots, you can start interacting with the people. Far from being dens of weirdness, à la my eccentric-old-man-with-hat fantasy, community gardens attract 63

a broad range of Canberrans. Turns out there are plenty of regular young people who’ve been waking up early for years to get down and dirty in the, er, dirt. Like 33-year-old Elly, who took a plot in the O’Connor garden after spending four years overseas helping out with humanitarian and natural disaster emergencies. “I missed being able to have real contact with nature,” she says, ticking off the reasons she got involved. “I was also extremely concerned to know that the veggies I was putting in my body had the maximum amount of nutrients in them, which you don’t usually get from mass-produced produce.” But it’s not all about getting black fingernails and stuffing one’s face with homegrown produce. The great thing about community gardening, as opposed to gardening on your own, is just that—community. “I love being involved in grassroots activities,” Elly enthuses. “I think it’s incredibly rewarding to be involved in a community group and sharing ideas, stories and experiences. It’s so nice just to hang out with people (even without talking) and learn about the richness that makes up the human environment.” Gardening is a great leveller. Anyone can garden. You don’t need to be clever, or rich (fees for your very own garden plot start at $1 per square metre, payable annually), or popular, or ancient. You don’t, as Canberra’s apartmentowning community gardeners know, even need to have a garden. If you hate other people, you can garden at home, in silence and alone. But if you like the warmth of interacting with your own species, if you appreciate good food and you crave the satisfaction of creating living things from practically nothing, then you could do a lot worse than contact COGS and get your paws in some dirt of your very own. Find out more about COGS and Canberra’s community gardens online at cogs.asn.au

beyond 2600

SL X 5 = Y? by Sevenoffiev Dubrovna aka Nick Ellis Second Life recently celebrated its fifth birthday. For a five year old, Second Life (SL) has had a fairly impressive life. SL has an average of 38,000 users logged in every month. Media organisations from around the world, including the Canberra Times, have ‘embedded’ journalists and report on ‘in world’ current affairs. SL is used by educational institutions, including the University of Queensland, to offer classes to students. SL has a functioning economy (albeit with strange factors affecting it), with ‘real life’ (RL) and SL businesses trading. As of this writing, there are at least three official embassies in SL, with our friends Estonia being the most recent addition. Lots of videogames are popular, a few even have similar systems of economy, but none seem to be getting the same sort of attention from otherwise serious institutions and organisations that SL is getting. Why? What does SL have that other videogames don’t?

SL is a massive-multiplayer-online game (MMO), much like World of Warcraft (WoW), a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) where players act out high fantasy quests (orcs and elves and dwarves, oh my!). WoW and other similar games can have equally intricate economies and equally passionate participants (anecdotally I know of at least one Canberran couple who followed up their RL wedding with a WoW ceremony). But there isn’t an Estonian embassy in World of Warcraft. The reason why? In Second Life, the users create the content. This might not seem like a huge deal, but it’s one of the major pushes throughout the internet at the moment, and it can mean a lot of things for a lot of different people. In SL, what you look like is completely up to you. You can be an eight-foot demon. You can be a six-foot blonde. You can be a furrie (Google it, but not at work). And when you’ve made yourself what you want to be, people will treat you like you are that thing. No matter what it is. (Yes, there is definitely a sense of perfectionism and escapism in how people make themselves look—there are very few intentionally ugly avatars in SL—but similar trends exist in sites like facebook [I’m talking to you, Mr Pouty-No-Shirt,] and in SL no one believes that your avatar holds any real reference to you in RL.) The same goes for the environment around you. If you own the land and have the time, you 64

can build whatever you want. You can build a spaceship to rival the USS Enterprise. You can build a Steampunk (you can Google this one at work) vista in Victorian England. The Estonians built an embassy. They did so because they could control what it was like. There are other videogames popular enough that if Estonia put an embassy in them they would have people coming past to find out about Estonia, but the Estonian government probably isn’t particularly interested in keeping an embassy in WoW’s Azeroth. The distinction between SL and WoW is the same as the internet phenomenon known as Web 2.0, the ‘second phase’ of the web, where users generate content for themselves and other users. mySpace, YouTube and facebook are all Web 2.0 applications. And this distinction is why there is so much interest in SL from the media and even from other SL users—if everyone could create their own worlds, what would they be like? In Second Life, you’re able to see at least a hint of what sort of fantastic world people would want to live in. A lot of the time it’s not all that great; the gap between people’s programming or designing skills and their imaginations can be vast. But every now and then you stumble across something amazing. Something you can’t see anywhere else. The future is not what it used to be; it’s whatever you want it to be.

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